Sourdough Discard Cowboy Cookies

Sourdough discard cowboy cookies are crunchy on the outside, with a chewy inside - bursting with chocolate chips, pecans, coconut and rolled oats, they are the perfect, anytime snack that will keep you coming back for more!

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Discard

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 16

Fermentation Time 12

Total Time 12 46

Servings cookies

Calories 160kcal

Equipment

Baking Tray
Cookie Dough Scoop

Ingredients

200 g All Purpose Flour
8 g Baking Powder
6 g Corn Starch (see notes for definition)
2 g Salt
200 g Chocolate Chips
150 g Pecans
80 g Sweetened Coconut Flakes
100 g Rolled Oats
100 g Sourdough Starter or Sourdough Discard
180 g Salted Butter Melted
160 g Brown Sugar
100 g White Sugar
1 Egg + Egg Yolk
5 g Vanilla Extract

Instructions

Place all of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, corn starch, white and brown sugar, pecans, rolled oats, sweetened coconut, salt and chocolate chips) into a large mixing bowl and combine. Set this aside.
Now in a separate bowl, combine sourdough starter, melted butter, egg + egg yolk and vanilla extract. Stir together until they are well combined.
Now pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to form the cookie dough. It will be quite wet - that's ok!
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place into the fridge for 12 to 24 hours.
The next day, when you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 165C (330F) and line two cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Use a cookie scoop or large spoon to scoop out balls of dough. I have used 30g dough balls for this recipe. Place the dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets. You can flatten them a little if you want to, but it's not necessary.
Place the cookies into the oven for 13 to 16 minutes at 165C (330F) or until they are golden brown on top but still molten in the centre (see notes on this).
Remove from the oven and carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool. The cookies will continue to bake for a few minutes after they are removed from the oven and will firm up as they cool.

Notes

Ingredient Notes:

Use Baking Powder NOT Baking Soda or Bicarb Soda
Corn Starch is a fine, white processed corn flour used for thickening sauces and gravies. Do NOT use corn meal! The corn starch is added to give you a softer cookie. Corn starch is called corn flour in Ausralia.
Sweetened Coconut Flakes - I've used sweetened coconut flakes - you can use shredded coconut or unsweetened flakes if you prefer.
Make sure you melt the butter for this recipe before you start. Letting it cool just slightly before you add it to the other ingredients will give you the best result. You don't want it to have cooled too much - it should still be slightly warm. I use salted butter in this recipe, but you can use unsalted butter if you prefer.

Refrigerating the dough will give you the best sourdough cowboy cookies. It means they won't spread so much in the oven and you'll get a chewier texture to the cooled cookies. I also love that refrigerating them overnight means that the dough ferments and the sourdough bacteria get to work their magic on your cookie dough! While you won't reap the same health benefits as eating sourdough bread, they're still doing lots of good!

Don't over cook these cookies. Remove them from the oven when the centre still looks wet or they will be too dry when they cool. The temperature of 165C (330F) might seem low, but it will give you a chewy centred cookie with crispy edges.

I've used pecans in these cookies - you can use any nuts you prefer. Peanuts and walnuts work really well too.

Nutrition