Sourdough Honey Pistachio Cookies

These sourdough honey pistachio cookies are soft and chewy with a rich, nutty flavor and a touch of natural sweetness from honey. The sourdough discard adds a subtle tang that perfectly balances the roasted pistachios and golden edges.

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Discard

Prep Time 45

Cook Time 13

Fermentation Time 12

Total Time 12 58

Servings cookies

Calories 113kcal

Equipment

2 Baking Trays
Cookie Scoop (1 tablespoon)

Ingredients

100 g Sourdough Starter (or Sourdough Discard)
180 g Salted Butter (Melted)
140 g Brown Sugar
80 g White Sugar (granulated sugar)
1 Egg (large egg, around 60 to 70g)
1 Egg Yolk (approx. 15g)
50 g Honey
5 g Vanilla Extract
300 g All Purpose Flour
8 g Baking Soda
6 g Corn Starch
3 g Salt
100 g Pistachios (roughly chopped)

Topping

5 g Flaky Sea Salt (smashed with a rolling pin)
20 g Pistachios (finely chopped)

Instructions

Before you start, chop up your pistachios. It's ok if they are just roughly chopped, so some are still whole, some are chopped up more finely. It will give your finished cookies such a great texture.
In a large mixing bowl, combine sourdough starter, melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, egg + egg yolk, honey and vanilla extract. Whisk together until they resemble runny caramel.
Now on top of the wet ingredient mixture, add the all purpose flour, baking soda, cornstarch, salt and roughly chopped pistachios. Stir all together to form a wet cookie dough.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place into the fridge for 12 to 24 hours to ferment and firm up.
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 35g dough balls for this recipe. Roll each dough ball in some roughly chopped pistachios before placing the dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle with some flakey sea salt.
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.

Notes

Butter - Make sure you melt the butter for this recipe before you start. Letting it cool just slightly before you add it to the other ingredients will give you the best result. You don't want it to have cooled too much - it should still be slightly warm. I use salted butter in this recipe, but you can use unsalted butter if you prefer.

Flour - Don't be tempted to add more flour to the mixture - even if you think it seems too wet for cookie dough! Adding more flour will give you a cake-like cookie.

Fermentation - Refrigerating the dough will give you the best cookies. It means they won't spread so much in the oven and you'll get a chewier, softer texture to the cooled cookies. I also love that refrigerating them overnight means that the dough ferments and the sourdough bacteria get to work their magic on your cookie dough! While you won't reap the same health benefits as eating sourdough bread, they're still doing lots of good!

Cooking Time - Don't over cook these cookies. Remove them from the oven when the centre still looks wet or they will be too dry when they cool. The temperature of 165C (330F) might seem low, but it will give you a soft centred cookie with crispy edges.

Nutrition