Sourdough Oatmeal Cream Pies

Sourdough oatmeal cream pies are easy to make and an absolute dream to eat and share. Reminiscent of the oatmeal cream pie cookie sandwiches you remember from your childhood, these ones are made using whole ingredients alongside your sourdough starter to recreate the classic treat. The homemade version of these cookies are crispy on the edges and just a little soft and chewy in the centre.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe!

• Uses Whole Ingredients – this recipe uses whole ingredients like butter, rolled oats, cream and of course your sourdough starter to create this from scratch sourdough version of oatmeal cream pies.
• Fermented Cookies – by leaving the oatmeal cookie dough in the fridge, you will allow your sourdough starter to ferment the flour in this recipe making them easier on your gut.
• Super Easy – this recipe is really easy! There’s no need for brown butter, cream cheese or anything fancy, just simple pantry ingredients you’ve probably already got at home!

Ingredients

• Butter – I’ve used salted butter in this recipe, but you can use unsalted if you prefer. It’s just my preference to use salted. Allow your butter to soften to room temperature before making this recipe for the best results. There’s no need to brown your butter for these sourdough oatmeal cookie sandwiches. They taste amazing using plain, softened butter!
• Sugar – this recipe uses brown sugar and granulated sugar in the cookies and powdered sugar in the vanilla cream filling. There is a lot of sugar overall, but given these cookies are a treat you don’t eat everyday, I don’t mind. You can use dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar if you prefer. This actually gives them a richer, more caramelised flavor.
• Egg – just one egg is all you need, I’ve used a large free range egg.
• Vanilla – I’ve used vanilla extract for both the sourdough oatmeal cookies and the vanilla filling.
• Molasses – you want liquid molasses, not blackstrap molasses. I love the molasses that comes in the squeezey bottle as it makes it mess free to use! Molasses gives these oatmeal cookie sandwiches a rich flavor.
• Sourdough Starter – you can use either sourdough discard or active sourdough starter to make the chewy oatmeal cookies for this recipe. In developing this recipe, I used active starter (because I generally always have some on my counter). I have also tested the recipe with discard and it tastes just as good! The cookies actually don’t use the starter or discard for leavening so it doesn’t make too much difference. Read about the difference between sourdough starter and sourdough discard.
• All Purpose Flour
• Rolled Oats – I’ve developed this recipe using old-fashioned oats. Many recipes for oatmeal cream pies use quick cooking oats but I prefer to use traditional rolled oats because I always have them on hand (unlike the quick oats which we don’t eat). If you prefer to use quick oats, that’s ok, just reduce the cooking time by a few minutes or your sourdough oatmeal cookies will burn.
• Baking Soda – you might know this as bicarbonate of soda depending on where you live. You’ll need just a little, don’t be tempted to add more or it can give your cookies a weird metallic taste.
• Salt – just a little bit added to both the cookie dough and the vanilla cream filling.
• Spices – I’ve used ground cinnamon and ground cloves to create the warm, homey flavor in these cookies. Go easy on the cloves though, you don’t want to overpower the flavor of these sourdough oatmeal cream pie cookie sandwiches.
• Heavy Cream – if you don’t have any heavy cream on hand, just use whole milk. I’ve tested both and it doesn’t have a huge effect on the final outcome.

How To Make Sourdough Oatmeal Cream Pies

These sourdough oatmeal cream pies are similar to Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies. The difference is this sourdough version uses common pantry ingredients like whole oats and brown sugar. The filling of this recipe actually contains cream, unlike the Little Debbie version (check the list of ingredients next time you see a pack).

As always, for a full ingredient list and instructions, please see the recipe card at the end of this post. I recommend using a kitchen scale to make this recipe.

I recommend making sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature before you begin this recipe, particularly the butter, eggs and sourdough starter or discard. This helps all of the ingredients combine more easily.

To a medium bowl, add all of the dry ingredients (all purpose flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and rolled oats). Stir together until everything is well combined and set aside.

Now in a separate bowl, cream the soft butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until they’re light and creamy. I’ve used my stand mixer with a paddle attachment. You can beat them by hand with a whisk if you prefer. This recipe is also suitable to make in a food processor. The food processor will chop up the rolled oats reducing the cooking time (so make sure you keep an eye on that).

Now add the eggs, vanilla, molasses and sourdough starter (or discard). Beat until everything is well combined. You might notice it looks slightly stringy – this is the sourdough starter!

Now take your dry ingredients and pour it into the bowl of wet ingredients. Stir together using a spatula until they are well combined. You can use your stand mixer with a paddle attachment for this, but I found it easier to just do this step by hand.

Once the sourdough oatmeal cookie dough is well combined, cover with plastic wrap and place into the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours, but up to 24 hours. I find that chilling the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours makes it much easier to handle.

When you’re ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 180ºC (375ºF). Take 2 extra large cookie or baking sheets and line with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Scoop out balls of cookie dough approx. 2 tablespoons in size (I use a cookie scoop but I weigh them out at 40g each on a digital scale for consistency). Roll the scoops of dough into balls in the palm of your hand before placing them onto the cookie sheets with plenty of room around them as they will spread quite a bit when they’re in the oven.

Bake the cookies at 180ºC (375ºF) for around 12 minutes or until the edges are starting to crisp up but the middle is still soft. They should be golden brown in color. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool on the trays for around 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make The Filling

While the cookies are cooling, whip your filling together. Place the powdered sugar, vanilla, heavy cream, butter and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whip until light and fluffy (around 5 minutes to really get the air in there and create a gorgeously light vanilla cream frosting).

Once the cookies have cooled completely, sandwich them together using the filling. I find piping the filling will give you the best consistency to your sourdough oatmeal cream pies. You can store the filling in a piping bag in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.

If you prefer a more tangy flavor filling, you might like to try the vanilla cream cheese filling from these sourdough cinnamon rolls.

How To Store + Freeze

These sourdough oatmeal cream pies will stay fresh for 2 days in an airtight container at room temperature once they are filled with the vanilla cream filling. If you want to store them longer than this, I recommend storing them in the fridge because the filling will soften the cookies.

If you want to store them longer and keep the cookies crisp, I recommend storing unfilled cookies in a glass or metal container and storing the vanilla cream filling in the fridge. Fill the cookies before you want to serve them.

You can freeze the unbaked cookie dough balls inside freezer-safe bags. When you’re ready to bake, allow the balls to thaw slightly. If you bake them from frozen, the cookie dough will not spread out and crisp up on the edges. 

Share the sourdough love!