These chewy sourdough apple cookies are what a good autumn cookie should be: browned butter, soft caramelised apple, warm spice, and a crackly oat crumb on top that goes slightly golden in the oven. Nothing about the middle is raw or wet. That's not an accident, it's the whole point of how this recipe is built.
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The trickiest part turned out to be shape, not flavour. At six large cookies to a batch full of moisture from discard and apples, the dough spreads, and it spreads unevenly. The fix came from an actual bake going slightly sideways, not a first-draft guess: a large cookie cutter, swirled around each cookie mid-bake, corrals the edges back into a proper round before they set. Two seconds a cookie, and it works.
Recipe Highlights
TASTE: browned butter, caramelised apple, warm spice. Autumnal bliss, if you ask me
SIGNATURE MOVE: dough gets corralled back into a neat round with a cookie cutter, mid-bake
TEXTURE: chewy centre, crisp edge, crackly oat crumb where it catches in the oven
SEB'S RATING: More glaze, please!
Ingredient Notes
- Apples. Cooked down in a small pan before it goes anywhere near the dough. Raw diced apple releases water as it bakes, and that water has to go somewhere.
- Browned butter. Gives the dough its depth and a faint nuttiness that plain melted butter can't. Plus a little extra moisture evaporates allowing some space for discard. Worth the extra five minutes at the hob.
- Egg yolk only. No whites here. It keeps the dough rich without adding moisture the discard is already bringing.
- Sourdough discard. Unfed, 100% hydration.
- Oat crumb topping. Adapted and scaled down from Broma Bakery's Apple Crisp Cookies, tested at this exact amount for six cookies with nothing left over.
Find the full ingredient quantities and instructions in the recipe card below.
Tips for Best Results
Why the apple goes in before the dry ingredients. Folding the cooled spiced apple into the wet mixture first, rather than tossing it in with the flour, means it distributes through the dough properly instead of clumping in pockets. It also means less stirring later, so the pieces stay whole rather than mushing down.
Why this dough skips the overnight chill. The plain sourdough cookie base handles a long chill well. This one doesn't, because the cooked apple keeps releasing a little moisture as it sits. Four hours in the fridge is the sweet spot. Go much beyond that and the dough turns noticeably softer and wetter, not better.
Why it spreads, and what the reshape actually does. Due to moist apples the dough spreads more, and it doesn't spread evenly. Rather than fight that with extra flour or a longer chill, let it spread for the first 12 minutes as it wants to. Then set a large cookie cutter, bigger than the cookie, around each one and swirl it in a circular motion to corral the edges back in. Do this the moment the tray comes out, while the cookies are still hot and soft. They firm up within about a minute, and once they do, the shape's set for good.
Getting the crumb topping right. Make it while the dough chills, so both are ready at the same time. It'll look slightly wet when you first mix it, that's normal, it firms up in the fridge. Press it onto the dough balls in loose clumps rather than one solid disc, so it stays textured rather than forming a cap.
Why the tray-drop is optional here. If the cookies puff up more than you'd like once they're out of the oven, a gentle drop of the tray onto the counter settles them. Go easy though. The crumb topping is still a little loose at this stage, and a firm knock will send it flying.
Storage
Baked cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to four days, or in the freezer for up to three months.
To bake from frozen, freeze the shaped dough balls before adding crumb topping, then bake straight from frozen with a couple of extra minutes in the oven.
More Sourdough Cookies to Try
If this one goes down well, my Chewy Sourdough Butter Pecan Cookies use the same browned-butter base with a completely different flavour direction, and the Sourdough White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies are worth a look if you want something brighter. For a simpler everyday bake, my Sourdough Oat and Raisin Cookies use the same oat instinct as the crumb topping here, and the Brown Butter Sourdough Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookies are the ones I make when I want something a bit saltier.
If it's the apple you're really after rather than the cookie shape, my Sourdough Apple Cake and Sourdough Apple Galette both lean on the same cooked-apple logic.
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Sourdough Apple Cookies
Equipment
- Digital kitchen scale
- Small saucepan (for the apple and for browning the butter)
- Balloon whisk or rubber spatula
- Large round cookie cutter, bigger than the cookies (for reshaping)
- Wire rack
Ingredients
For the spiced apple:
- 100 g apple about 1 small eating apple, peeled and cored to roughly 75g, finely diced (5mm)
- 10 g unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- pinch of ground nutmeg
For the sourdough cookie dough:
- 75 g unsalted butter browned
- 70 g granulated sugar
- 70 g light brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 80 g sourdough discard 100% hydration, unfed
- 135 g all-purpose flour (plain flour)
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
For the oat crumb topping (optional):
- 18 g unsalted butter melted
- 15 g light brown sugar
- 15 g all-purpose flour (plain flour)
- 5 g old-fashioned rolled oats
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- To finish optional:
For maple glaze (optional)
- 2 tablespoon icing sugar
- 1-2 teaspoon maple syrup
- a few drops of milk
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Melt the 10g butter in a small pan over medium heat. Add the diced apple, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring often, until the apple is just tender, lightly caramelised, and most of the liquid has cooked away. Tip onto a plate (avoid adding any remaining liquid), spread out and cool completely.
- Brown the 75g butter: melt in a small pan over medium heat until it foams, then turns golden brown and smells nutty. Set aside to cool slightly.
- Whisk the granulated and brown sugar together in a large bowl. Pour over the browned butter and beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes, until thick and glossy.
- Add the egg yolk and vanilla, and beat for a further 2 minutes.
- Stir in the sourdough discard by hand with a balloon whisk or a rubber spatula, not the mixer, so you don't develop the gluten.
- Fold in the cooled spiced apple now, before the dry ingredients, for even distribution.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Fold into the wet mixture until just combined.
- Cover and chill for 4 hours.
- If using the crumb topping, make it now: stir the melted butter, brown sugar, flour, oats and cinnamon together until it starts to clump. It'll look a bit wet at first, that's normal. Cover and chill alongside the dough.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment. If you want uniform cookies, weigh the dough and divide into 6 balls, roughly 80g each, spaced well apart.
- If using the crumb topping, press about 1 teaspoon onto each dough ball, breaking it up slightly so it sits in loose clumps.
- Bake for 12 minutes. The dough will spread, often unevenly, that's expected at this size.
- Reshape: as soon as the 12 minutes are up, working quickly while the cookies are still hot, set a large cookie cutter around each one and swirl in a circular motion to corral the edges into a neat round.
- Return the tray to the oven for a further 2-3 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.
- If the cookies have puffed up more than you'd like, drop the tray gently onto the counter to settle them, going easy as the crumb is still loose at this point.
- Cool on the tray for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
- Once completely cool, drizzle with maple glaze if using: whisk the icing sugar, maple syrup and milk together until thick but pourable. Works fine over the crumb topping too.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe Faqs
Yes. Raw diced apple releases water as it bakes, and in a dough that already contains sourdough discard, that extra moisture is what turns the centre soggy. Cooking the apple down first drives off most of that water and concentrates the flavour at the same time, so it's worth the five extra minutes at the hob.
You can, though the dough may spread slightly differently. If you swap it in, keep the chill time and dough amount the same and just watch the bake a little more closely the first time.
A firmer variety holds its shape better once cooked and folded through the dough. Braeburn, Granny Smith and Cox all work well. Softer varieties like Gala tend to break down more and lose definition.
Yes, the crumb topping and the maple glaze are independent of each other. You can use either one, both, or neither, and the dough itself doesn't change.
Both freeze well. Baked cookies keep in the freezer for up to 3 months. For the dough, freeze the shaped, unglazed balls and bake straight from frozen with a couple of extra minutes added to the bake time.
At this batch size, six large cookies, some spread is normal and not a sign anything went wrong. If you want a neater shape without changing the recipe, corral the edges back in with a large cookie cutter as soon as the cookies come out for their first bake, while they're still hot enough to move.
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