Hi, it's me; I'm still alive and well. The last time I did anything blog-related was in May, when Singapore was going through its 'Circuit Breaker' (or more commonly known elsewhere in the world as a lockdown) due to COVID-19. I had more free time then, as the government brought forward the June school holiday to May. When June rolled around, school reopened for Term 3, which was unusual, to say the least.
From that point until now, I neither had the time nor capacity to blog, for the past few months at work have been exhausting and hectic. So I inadvertently took a break from the blog and even took short breaks from Instagram from time to time (it is tiring to keep up with social media sometimes). Instead, deciding to simply use precious free time as downtime, I focused on baking for leisure, something that I have always loved doing ever since I was a girl. Doing so really helped me to recharge and manage my stress levels.
Another good thing to come out of the past few months was that I finally found the opportunity to expand my knowledge and skills as a home baker through learning about and creating my own sourdough starter and bread. It was during Circuit Breaker that my sourdough starter, Weirdough (pronounced "weirdo", and yes, I love puns, evidently), was born (p.s. I'll share more about Weirdough and my sourdough adventures in a separate post. :) ).
My journey with sourdough has been interesting and fun. I feel like there is always so much I need to learn about sourdough, and I love how this need to learn more challenges me to grow as a baker. In addition, I not only can make bread using sourdough, but I've found that sourdough discard (the portion of your sourdough starter that you get rid off when you feed your starter) can be used to bake sweet treats as well! Perfect for me, because as you know, I love desserts.
One of my most favourite sweet treats that I've made using sourdough discard are these sourdough chocolate chip cookies. Adapted from Edd Kimber's recipe, these cookies check all the boxes of a great cookie: crisp edges, soft and chewy centre, fragrant and nutty due to the use of browned butter, and full of chocolate. I tweaked the recipe a little to suit my tastes. The resulting cookies are to die for. In fact, I've made them so many times already! These cookies always disappear very quickly as my family and I (well, mainly my sister and I) would inhale them.
If you have a sourdough starter at home and have some sourdough discard, I promise you won't regret making these.
Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 30 cookies
Ingredients
225 g unsalted butter
180 g light brown sugar
180 g granulated sugar
1 tsp flaky sea salt, plus more for sprinkling
3Â large egg yolks
1 1/12 tsp vanilla extract
240 g sourdough starter discard (100% hydration)
380 g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
380 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped, plus extra chunks for topping the cookies
Method
In a small pot or saucepan over medium heat, brown the butter. Gently melt and cook the butter until it turns from yellow to brown in colour and smells fragrant and nutty. Pour the browned butter into a large bowl and set it aside to cool completely.
To the cooled browned butter, whisk in the sugars and salt. The mixture might look grainy at first, but it will become smooth when the rest of the ingredients are added.
Whisk in the egg yolks one by one, followed by the vanilla extract.
Stir in the sourdough starter discard until the mixture is well-combined.
Using a spatula, fold the flour, baking powder, baking soda and dark chocolate into the mixture until everything is combined.
Dump the cookie dough into an airtight container or wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the cookie dough for at least one hour.
If you are planning to bake the cookies on the same day, preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Remove the cookie dough from the fridge and divide the dough into = balls each weighing about 50 grams.
Arrange the cookie dough balls on the baking tray, spacing each ball about 2 inches apart (because they will spread). I
Bake the cookies for 16 to 18 minutes. (Optionally, bake the cookies for 12 minutes, remove from the oven, and place an extra chocolate chunk on top of the cookie; then, bake for 4 to 5 more minutes. I like to to this because I like the additional semi-melty chocolate chunk on top of my cookies. You don't have to do this and you can just bake the cookies straight for 16 to 18 minutes.)
Remove the cookies from the oven and sprinkle the tops with flaky sea salt. If you want extra round cookies, use a cookie cutter that is slightly larger than the cookies and perform circular motions around the edge of the cookies (this is a trick I learned from Cloudy Kitchen... I think).
Finally, enjoy the cookies warm, with a cold glass of milk (yummmmm).
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