Sourdough Date and Walnut Cookies

These sourdough date and walnut cookies are soft, chewy, and full of rich flavor from caramelly-sweet dates, buttery walnuts, and a touch of coffee. The sourdough starter adds a subtle tang and helps create the perfect chewy texture. They’re an easy make-ahead cookie that tastes even better the next day.

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Discard

Prep Time 45

Cook Time 13

Fermentation Time 12

Total Time 12 58

Servings cookies

Calories 133kcal

Author Kate Freebairn

Equipment

Baking Tray

Ingredients

Make This First

10 g Coffee Powder
50 g Hot Water
150 g Dates (chopped)
5 g Vanilla Paste

Wet Ingredients

200 g Salted Butter (melted)
160 g Brown Sugar
100 g White Sugar
100 g Sourdough Starter (or sourdough discard)
1 Egg + Egg Yolk

Dry Ingredients

350 g All Purpose Flour
3 g Baking Soda
2 g Salt
100 g Walnuts (roughly chopped)

Instructions

10 minutes before you want to make these cookies, soak the chopped pitted dates in a bowl with the coffee powder, vanilla paste and 50g of hot water. Let this sit for around 10 minutes while you gather the other ingredients.
Now, whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar and egg + egg yolk until it resembles runny caramel. Then add your sourdough starter and whisk again. Set this aside for a moment.
In a separate bowl, toss together the all purpose flour, baking soda and chopped walnuts until they are well combined.
Now, pour the runny caramel mixture and the date mixture into the dry ingredients and stir to form a slick cookie dough. Make sure all the flour is mixed through.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place into the fridge for 12 to 24 hours.
The next day, when you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 165C (330F) and line two cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Use a cookie scoop or large spoon to scoop out balls of dough. I have used a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop for this recipe, yielding 18 cookies. Place the dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets.
Place the cookies into the oven for 12 to 13 minutes at 165C (330F) or until they are golden brown on top but still molten in the centre.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for around 10 minutes. The cookies will continue to bake for a few minutes after they are removed from the oven and will firm up as they cool. After 10 minutes, carefully transfer to a wire rack and allow them to cool completely.

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