Sourdough Cookie Bars
These sourdough cookie bars are thick and chewy made with browned butter and lots of chocolate. They taste like these sourdough chocolate chip cookies, but you can skip the individual rolling!
Don’t skip the step of browning the butter for these cookie bars – firstly you need to do it for the structure of the cookies (browning the butter will remove around 20% water), but most importantly for the flavor browned butter brings! The cookie dough is baked in an 8×8-inch (20x20cm) baking pan, or you could use a 9×9 inch pan too and adjust the baking time.
The dough is chilled for at least 2 hours, but overnight is best. Chilling lets the flavors develop more and the flour hydrate fully. I use a sourdough discard starter at 100% hydration that hasn’t been fed in a while but if you’ve got leftover active starter you can use that too!
I finish the baked cookie bars off with a sprinkle of flaky salt – it balances the sweetness beautifully. For more sourdough discard recipes check out this sourdough red velvet cake and sourdough cheese scones.
Ingredients
The ingredient amounts are in the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post. Here is a rundown of what you will need.
- Unsalted butter. This will be turned into brown butter, which makes the best chocolate chip cookies.
- Sourdough starter – Leftover sourdough starter is used. You can save your extra sourdough starter discard in the back of your fridge, separate from your active starter. This way, you can keep adding to it each time you discard some, and it is ready to use in discard recipes.
- Large egg
- Soft brown sugar – This can be light or dark brown sugar. It keeps the cookies moist and gives a more chewy texture.
- Granulated white sugar – gives crisp edges
- Vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- Salt
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda – This is what will react with the acid in the sourdough starter and create the cookie leavening and texture.
- Dark chocolate or milk chocolate chunks – You can use regular chocolate chips, or my favorite is to cut up a good quality chocolate bar into chunks.
Method
- Begin by browning the butter so it has time to cool. Pour into a heatproof mixing bowl.
- Mix in the sugars, egg, vanilla, sourdough starter until combined.
Stir through the dry ingredients until almost combined.
- Stir through the chocolate.
- It will make a very runny dough.
- Spread it into a lined pan and chill for 2 hours or up to 3 days.
- Bake until golden brown and cooked through. Sprinkle with flaky salt.
- Let the cookie bars for a few hours before removing from the pan.
- Slice and enjoy!
Related recipes
Sourdough Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 140 g unsalted butter
- 100 g soft brown sugar
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 100 g discard sourdough starter
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 190 g all-purpose flour
- 170 g semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Flaky salt to serve
Instructions
- Let the butter melt in a saucepan. Once melted, let it cook further for around 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally until the milk solids have caramelized and the butter smells nutty. Pour the browned butter and all those browned solids into a large heat-proof bowl and allow it to cool down for around 10 minutes. It will be about 112-115g of browned butter.
- Once the butter has cooled, add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, sourdough starter, egg, and vanilla and mix well.
- Stir in the baking soda and salt until well combined.
- Add the flour and mix until almost combined, with a few dry streaks remaining. Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine. It will be a sticky and wet cookie dough.
- Line a 8×8-inch (20x20cm) baking pan with parchment paper and scoop the cookie dough into it. Smooth it out with the back of a spoon or offset spatula
- Cover the pan and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days.
- When ready to bake, heat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Bake the cookie bars for around 30-35 minutes until the top is set and golden brown.
- Let the cookie bar cool in the tin for an hour before removing and letting it cool completely on a wire rack. The cookies will be pretty soft while still warm but will firm up as they cool to room temperature.
- To serve, slice the cookies into individual cookies with a sharp knife. Slice four rows horizontally and four rows vertically to create 16 pieces.
