Sourdough Apple Cookies
These chewy sourdough apple cookies are made with browned butter, a pan of caramelised spiced apple, and pull into a neat round thanks to a mid-bake reshape trick. Finished with an oat crumb topping and an optional maple drizzle.
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
Cooking the apple down first isn't an optional flourish. Apple is mostly water, and raw diced apple folded into a discard dough that's already carrying extra moisture will turn the cookies soggy in the middle. Cooking it off first concentrates the flavour and removes the problem before it starts.
A firmer apple variety (Braeburn, Granny Smith, Cox) holds its shape better once cooked than something soft like Gala.
Yolk only, not a whole egg, corrects for the extra moisture the discard brings, consistent with the rest of my sourdough cookie base recipes.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. Freeze baked cookies for up to 3 months, or freeze the unbaked dough balls and bake straight from frozen, adding a couple of extra minutes to the bake time.
Nutrition
Calories: 365kcalCarbohydrates: 55gProtein: 4gFat: 15gSaturated Fat: 9gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 69mgSodium: 151mgPotassium: 80mgFiber: 1gSugar: 31gVitamin A: 482IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 30mgIron: 1mg
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