A London Fog is a latte for people who find coffee too aggressive before 10am: Earl Grey steeped in milk, a splash of vanilla, a bit of foam on top. These sourdough London Fog cookies take that same idea and turn it into something you can eat with one hand. Bergamot and lavender up front, a proper chew, and a brown butter and sourdough discard base doing quiet work in these Earl Grey cookies.
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They're built on the same dough as my sourdough sugar cookies, just taken somewhere more grown-up. This Earl Grey Cookie recipe gives you an option to steep the tea in browned butter at a specific temperature or simply mix the flavours with dry ingredients.
Recipe Highlights
TASTE: Bergamot and lavender up front, brown butter and sourdough tang humming underneath
TEXTURE: Chewy middle, slightly crisp edge, not a shortbread
IMPORTANT BIT: The four-hour chill isn't optional
SEB'S RATING: Announced he "doesn't really do floral." Had a second one within the hour.
A Few Notes on Ingredients
- Earl Grey tea: Loose leaf, finely ground, gives a cleaner flavour. If loose leaf isn't to hand, torn-open tea bags work fine, you need roughly 1½ bags to hit the same weight. We love the flavour, and use it our London Fog Sourdough Bread too.
- Culinary lavender: Buy the food-grade stuff, not garden lavender or a dried bunch from a florist, which can carry pesticide residue you don't want in a cookie. ¼ teaspoon is correct for this batch. It looks like nothing in the spoon and blooms considerably once baked, so resist rounding up. If you have a spice mill, grind it. Alternatively, chop the lavender with a sharp knife as finely as possible. We also use it in our Honey Lavender Sourdough Bread.
- Sourdough discard: Straight from the fridge, unfed, is fine. If you're newer to keeping a starter and wondering what discard actually is or why it behaves the way it does in bakes like this, my sourdough discard guide covers it properly.
- Butter: Needs to be browned, not just melted. Not only for flavour, but this step also allows extra moisture to evaporate, making room for liquid in sourdough discard.
Find the full ingredient quantities and instructions in the recipe card below.
Method
1. Melt the butter in a light-coloured pan over medium heat, swirling often, until it foams, then browns, with golden flecks on the base and a nutty smell. Take it off the heat the moment it browns.
Choose your tea method
OPTION 1: STEEP TEA IN BUTTER: For deeper flavour: let the butter cool until a thermometer reads no higher than 75°C (167°F), or until the sizzling has died down and you can hold a finger near the pan without flinching. Stir in the tea and steep off the heat for 8-10 minutes, no longer than 15. Strain if you want clean dough, or leave the leaves in for a stronger, rustic result.
OPTION 2: For a simpler, more diffuse flavour: skip the steep and add the ground tea to the dry ingredients.
2. Let the butter cool to just warm, then cream it with both sugars for about 2 minutes, until grainy, using an electric mixer.
3. Add the egg yolk and vanilla, and whisk for a further 2 minutes until slightly thickened.
4. Switch to a balloon whisk and fold in the sourdough discard gently, just enough to combine. Don't use the electric mixer from this point, it develops gluten you don't want in a cookie.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, lavender, bicarbonate of soda and salt (plus the ground tea here if using the dry-mix method).
6. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet, mixing only until no streaks of flour remain. Overmixing here is the main way to lose the chew.
7. Cover and chill the dough for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
8. Shape into 6 balls, roughly 70-72g each, and space out on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
9. Sprinkle each ball with a scant ¼ teaspoon of granulated sugar just before baking.
10. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 14-16 minutes, until the edges are golden but the centres still look soft and slightly underdone. Drop the tray from about 20cm (8 inches) onto the counter as soon as it comes out of the oven, this is what gives the crinkled top.
11. Cool on the tray for 10 minutes, then move to a wire rack.
Tips for Success
🌸 Don't round the lavender up. ¼ teaspoon is the ceiling, not the floor. Go over and it tips from floral into something closer to soap, and there's no fixing it once it's baked in. You can always up the quantity next time you bake these, but make sure not to overpowder the bergamot, which is, and should be, the main flavour in this cookie.
🌡️ Use a thermometer for the tea steep if you can. 75°C (167°F) is precise for a reason. Guessing by eye works, but a scorched steep is a wasted batch of good tea.
❄️ Don't skip the chill. Four hours firms the butter enough that the cookies hold their shape instead of spreading thin, and gives the flour time to properly hydrate.
🥄 Switch to a balloon whisk once the discard goes in. An electric mixer at this stage develops gluten fast, and you'll end up with something closer to bread than cookie.
🔥 Bake one tray at a time if you can. Two trays sharing an oven bake unevenly, and these are forgiving enough elsewhere that it's not worth gambling on the one step that decides texture.
Recipe FAQs
A London Fog is a tea latte made with Earl Grey, steamed milk, vanilla syrup, and a bit of foam on top. It's essentially a softer, more floral alternative to a regular latte, built around bergamot instead of espresso. These cookies borrow that same flavour pairing and put it into a chewy sourdough discard base.
It adds a gentle tang and extra chew, but it doesn't compete with the tea or lavender the way you might expect. Discard's sourness sits underneath fruitier or more assertive flavours, and here it mostly rounds out the sweetness rather than fighting the bergamot for attention.
Yes, and this one especially. Four hours firms up the brown butter enough that the cookies hold their shape in the oven instead of spreading into thin discs, and it gives the flour time to hydrate, which improves both texture and flavour.
Yes. Shape it into balls first, then freeze on a tray before transferring to a bag or container. Bake straight from frozen, adding 2 to 3 minutes to the time, no need to thaw first.
Storage & Make-Ahead
Baked cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. For longer storage, shape the dough into balls and freeze them raw rather than baking ahead, they hold their texture far better that way. Bake from frozen, adding 2 to 3 minutes to the time.
More Sourdough Cookie Recipes
If this one's convinced you sourdough cookies can go further than chocolate chip, there's more where that came from. Try the sourdough discard chocolate chip cookies for the classic done properly, the matcha sourdough cookies with white chocolate chips if you're already in a flavoured-cookie mood, the sourdough gingerbread cookies for when it turns cold, or the sourdough red velvet cookies for something a bit showier. More below:
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Sourdough London Fog Cookies (Earl Grey & Lavender)
Equipment
- Small saucepan (for browning the butter)
- Instant-read or candy thermometer (optional)
- Balloon Whisk
- Rubber Spatula
- Wire rack
Ingredients
- 75 g (⅓ cup) unsalted butter
- 1½ teaspoon Earl Grey tea leaves finely ground (about 1-1½ tea bags, torn open - see method for steeped vs dry-mix)
- 70 g (⅓ cup) granulated sugar
- 70 g (⅓ cup) light brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 80 g (⅓ cup) sourdough discard 100% hydration
- 130 g (1 cup) plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- ¼ teaspoon culinary lavender finely ground or very finely chopped
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1½ teaspoon granulated sugar for sprinkling on top
Instructions
- Brown the butter. Melt in a light-coloured pan over medium heat, swirling often. It'll foam, then the foam will subside and you'll see golden-brown flecks form on the base with a nutty smell. Take it off the heat the moment it browns.
- Choose your tea method here. 1. Steeped-in-butter method: Don't add the tea to the butter straight away, it's too hot and will scorch the bergamot oils, which turns them bitter and a bit perfumey instead of fragrant. Let the butter cool until a thermometer reads no higher than 75°C (167°F). If you don't have a thermometer, wait until the sizzling and steaming has properly died down and you could hold your finger near the side of the pan without flinching. Stir in the ground Earl Grey, then let it steep off the heat for 8-10 minutes, stirring once or twice. Don't push past 15 minutes or the tea starts to taste stewed. Strain through a fine sieve if you want clean flecks-free dough (press the leaves gently with a spoon to reclaim the butter clinging to them), or leave the leaves in for a more rustic look and stronger flavour. Let the butter cool to just warm before the next step. 2. Dry-mix method (simpler, method used in the photos shown in this recipe): Skip the steeping. Just let the browned butter cool to just warm, and add the ground tea to the dry ingredients in step 5 instead.
- Cream the cooled brown butter with both sugars for about 2 minutes, until grainy, using an electric mixer.
- Add the egg yolk and vanilla, and whisk for another 2 minutes until slightly thickened.
- Whisk in the sourdough discard gently with a balloon whisk, just enough to combine, no vigorous beating.
- Mix the dry ingredients separately: flour, lavender, baking soda, salt (and the ground Earl Grey here if you went with the dry-mix method).
- Fold the dry ingredients into the wet, mixing only until no streaks of flour remain. Overmixing here is the main way to lose the chew.
- Chill the dough, covered, for at least 4 hours, or overnight. Don't skip this, the dough needs it to firm up and the flavours need the time to settle in.
- Shape into 6 balls, roughly 70-72g each, and space out on a parchment-lined baking tray.
- Sprinkle each ball with a scant ½ teaspoon of granulated sugar (about 1 tablespoon total) just before baking.
- Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 14-16 minutes, until the edges are golden but the centres still look soft and slightly underdone.
- Drop the tray from about 20cm height onto the counter as soon as it comes out of the oven, this is what gives you the crinkled, crackled top.
- Cool on the tray for 10 minutes, then move to a wire rack.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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