Homemade Sourdough Biscoff Cookies
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Make your own homemade sourdough Biscoff cookies using your sourdough starter discard! These homemade sourdough cookies are so easy!
Delightfully crisp and golden, these sourdough speculoos cookies bring a rich caramel flavor, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, among others. They will make a welcome addition to your cookie jar.
If you love baking homemade sourdough cookies, make sure you check out these sourdough gingerbread cookies, sourdough gingerbread crinkle cookies or these sourdough biscotti.
Why You'll Love This Recipe!
Fermented Sourdough Cookies - this homemade sourdough biscoff cookie recipe allows you to ferment the cookie dough in the fridge for up to 48 hours, just like these sourdough discard chocolate chip cookies. This ensures your sourdough starter works its magic!
Made From Scratch - if you love making cookies from scratch, rather than buying them from the store, then you'll love this recipe! It's full of warming spices and loads of love!
They Make The Perfect Gift - these delicious sourdough biscoff cookies make a beautiful homemade Christmas gift. Use a beautiful embossed rolling pin to make them extra special and present them in a cellophane bag.
What Are Biscoff Cookies?
Most people know biscoff cookies from the Lotus brand of Biscoff that you buy at the store. I was first introduced to these at my hairdresser, where they give you a little packet to go with your coffee. This is very apt, since "biscoff" is a combination of the words biscuits and coffee. Get it?
The biscoff cookies you buy from the store are delicious, with a caramel sweetness, spiced with cinnamon. Reading the back of the packet, I couldn't find any other spices listed for these biscuits.
Since Biscoff is actually the commercial brand name given to the cookies by Lotus, you might also see these types of cookies at the grocery store labelled "Dutch Spice Cookies" or "Speculoos" - more on this further down.
Why Add Sourdough Starter To Cookies?
My middle son has recently discovered the bliss that is biscoff cookies, hence I thought I would try and make a homemade sourdough version. I love being able to fill the cookie jar with homemade cookies made with sourdough discard.
Adding sourdough starter, or sourdough discard to the cookie dough means that you can ferment the dough. This allows the sourdough microbes to work their microbial magic! This results in a tastier cookie. I love the flavor after the dough has been in the fridge for at least 24 hours, it's amazing!
You can read about the difference between sourdough starter and sourdough discard here.
What Spices Are Used In Homemade Sourdough Biscoff Cookies?
Biscoff cookies belong to a family of cookies known as Speculoos. In many homemade biscoff recipes, "speculoos spice mix" is listed as an ingredient. You can actually buy jars of speculoos spice. If you have some, or you're able to buy some, this is a great addition to your cookies. You can use 5 teaspoon of speculoos spice in this recipe, instead of adding all the spices separately as I have done.
From my research, speculoos or speculaas (depending on whether you use the Dutch or Belgian spelling) commonly uses a combination of the following spices.
- Ground Cinnamon
- Ground Cloves
- Ground Nutmeg
- Aniseed
- White Pepper
- Ground Cardamon
- Ground Ginger
- Mace
In testing the recipe for these homemade sourdough biscoff cookies, I have chosen not to use aniseed, white pepper, cardamon or mace. I found that it made the cookies too warm (like gingerbread) and I really wanted the caramel and cinnamon flavors to be prominent in this recipe.
How To Make Sourdough Biscoff Cookies
Making the cookie dough for these sourdough biscoff cookies is really easy! I've used a stand mixer, but you certainly don't have to. A bowl and whisk or even electric hand mixer would be just fine.
Many homemade biscoff cookie recipes suggest using an embossed rolling pin or even a specific biscoff cookie cutter or fluted edge rectangle cookie cutter. I honestly did not have any of these in my kitchen and didn't want to buy them just for one recipe, so I've kept things simple and just used a round cookie cutter.
You'll also see a few flower shaped cookies where I got a bit creative, but honestly the plain ones taste best because they are nice and thin and crispy. Sometimes, simple is the best!
Let's Get To Making Some Cookie Dough!
This sourdough cookie dough needs to be fermented in the fridge, so there's no need to preheat your oven just yet. I like to make the dough in my stand mixer, but you can use a bowl and whisk if you prefer.
To the bowl of your stand mixer, add the softened butter, white sugar and dark brown sugar and whisk until the mixture is light and fluffy.
To the butter and sugar mixture, add the vanilla extract and sourdough starter and whisk again until well combined.
Now, add the all purpose flour, spice mixture, baking soda, baking powder and salt to the bowl of the stand mixture and whisk until a thick cookie batter forms. The dough is quite stiff, but this is how it's meant to be.
Remove the sourdough biscoff cookie dough from the bowl and place onto a piece of parchment paper. Push the dough into a disk, wrap it up and place it in the fridge to ferment for at least 2 hours (but up to 48 hours).
When You're Ready To Bake
When you are ready to bake the cookies, line 2 large cookie trays with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 180C (350F) - I've used fan forced here.
Lightly dust a clean surface with rice flour and roll out your sourdough biscoff cookie dough to around 5mm thick. You can use an embossed rolling pin to pattern the dough if you have one. Otherwise, use a cookie cutter of your choice to cut out as many cookies as you can.
You can re roll the excess cookie dough and just keep cutting out more cookies until it's all used up.
Place the homemade sourdough biscoff cookies onto the cookie trays you prepared earlier and bake for around 14 to 16 minutes at 180C (350F) or until cookies are golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool on the trays before transferring to a wire rack. The cookies will not crisp up until they are completely cooled.
Are Biscoff The Same As Gingerbread Cookies?
Many people think that biscoff cookies are similar to gingerbread, and while they do share some of the spices, they do have a different flavor and texture.
Biscoff cookies have much less ginger in them and have a more concentrated cinnamon flavor, along with caramel undertones from the sugars used.
Gingerbread tends to be more spicy and leave a warmth on your tongue when you eat it, where as biscoff cookies are more crunchy and have an aromatic cinnamon flavor without the heat.
Sourdough Biscoff Cookies
Equipment
- Rolling Pin
Ingredients
- 230 g Butter (softened at room temperature)
- 50 g Dark Brown Sugar
- 120 g White Sugar
- 100 g Sourdough Starter (or sourdough starter discard)
- 5 g Vanilla Extract
- 280 g All Purpose Flour
- 4 teaspoon Cinnamon (ground)
- ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg (ground)
- ½ teaspoon Ginger
- ½ teaspoon All Spice
- ¼ tsp Cloves
- 4 g Baking Powder
- 4 g Baking Soda
- 4 g Salt
Instructions
- This sourdough cookie dough needs to be fermented in the fridge, so there's no need to preheat your oven just yet. I like to make the dough in my stand mixer, but you can use a bowl and whisk if you prefer.
- To the bowl of your stand mixer, add the softened butter, white sugar and dark brown sugar and whisk until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- To the butter and sugar mixture, add the vanilla extract and sourdough starter and whisk again until well combined.
- Now, add the all purpose flour, spice mixture, baking soda, baking powder and salt to the bowl of the stand mixture and whisk until a thick cookie batter forms. The dough is quite stiff, but this is how it's meant to be.
- Remove the sourdough biscoff cookie dough from the bowl and place onto a piece of parchment paper. Push the dough into a disk, wrap it up and place it in the fridge to ferment for at least 2 hours (but up to 48 hours).
- When you are ready to bake the cookies, line 2 large cookie trays with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 180C (350F) - I've used fan forced here.
- Lightly dust a clean surface with rice flour and roll out your sourdough biscoff cookie dough to around 5mm thick. You can use an embossed rolling pin to pattern the dough if you have one. Otherwise, use a cookie cutter of your choice to cut out as many cookies as you can.
- Place the homemade sourdough biscoff cookies onto the cookie trays you prepared earlier and bake for around 14 to 16 minutes at 180C (350F) or until cookies are golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool on the trays before transferring to a wire rack. The cookies will not crisp up until they are completely cooled.
Notes
Nutrition
