Spiced Sourdough Brownies

A warming take on a traditional chocolate brownie, made with sourdough starter, chocolate and aromatic spices. Topped with buttery candied pecans made with brown sugar. A rich dessert to warm your heart!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Discard

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 35

Total Time 50

Servings

Calories 530kcal

Equipment

Mixing Bowl
Square Brownie Pan 9" x 9"

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

150 g All Purpose Flour
380 g White Sugar
65 g Cocoa Powder
3 g Salt
3 g Baking Powder
100 g Chocolate Chips (I've used semi sweet but white work really well in this recipe too!)
2 teaspoon Cinnamon
½ teaspoon Nutmeg (adjust to your taste)
1 teaspoon Ginger (ground)
½ teaspoon All Spice (adjust to your taste)

Wet Ingredients

120 g Butter (melted)
2 Eggs (large eggs are best, if using small eggs add 3)
5 g Vanilla Extract
120 g Sourdough Starter (can be unfed or active and bubbly)

Topping

100 g Pecans (chopped)
30 g Butter (melted)
20 g Brown Sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 160C/320F. Grab a 9" x 9" brownie pan - it's up to you whether you grease the pan with butter or line it with parchment paper.
In a bowl, add the all purpose flour, white sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and all spice. Whisk the dry ingredients together until well combined.
Place the chocolate chips in the bowl and mix until they are all coated in the flour mixture.
On top of the dry ingredients, add the melted butter, 2 eggs, vanilla extract and sourdough starter.
Using a spatula, gently mix all of the wet and dry ingredients together, ensuring that the sourdough starter is well combined (see notes for more info on this).
This is a thick brownie mixture - that’s ok, it’s meant to be like this.
Place the sourdough brownie mixture into your prepared pan and push it out to ensure it covers the whole base of the pan. Set this aside.
Now, in a separate bowl, combine the pecans, melted butter and brown sugar, ensuring the pecans are well coated. Spread the pecan mixture out over the top of the spiced sourdough brownie batter, gently pushing them in to ensure they bake into the batter.
Place the spiced sourdough brownies into the oven and bake at 160C/320F for around 35 minutes, you want the middle to still be molten when you remove them from the oven.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for around 30 minutes. Then remove from the pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing into squares.

Notes

Sourdough Starter or Sourdough Discard - you can use either active starter or sourdough discard in this recipe, either works just fine. You don't want your sourdough starter to be too thick though or it won't combine well with the other ingredients and can leave streaks of baked starter through the brownies.

These spiced sourdough brownies are best eaten the day after baking. I don't know why, but they taste richer and more fudgy the next day.

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