Sourdough Red Velvet Cookies
These sourdough discard cookies are the red velvet lovers delight. Filled with a rich cream cheese center and finished with a drizzle of white chocolate, these sourdough red velvet cookies are sure to please your friends and family. They can be enjoyed any time of year but are especially beautiful to serve for sourdough Christmas cookies (along with my sourdough gingerbread cookies, sourdough orange chocolate shortbread cookies, and sourdough chocolate crinkle cookies) or as a Valentine’s dessert.
Sourdough cookies are a great way to use up extra sourdough starter discard. Some of my favorite sourdough cookie recipes include my reader favorite sourdough shortbread cookies, maple pecan sourdough oatmeal cookies, and sourdough white chocolate macadamia cookies.
Ingredients
- Cream cheese
- Powdered sugar
- All purpose flour
- Vanilla extract
- Salt
Cookie Dough
- All purpose flour
- Cocoa powder
- Salt
- Baking soda
- Butter: This recipe calls for unsalted butter. If you only have salted butter you can use that instead. The amount of salt in the butter is not enough to make a huge difference in flavor in this recipe.
- Brown sugar: You can use light brown sugar or dark brown sugar in this recipe.
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract: I always recommend pure vanilla extract over imitation vanilla for purity of flavor but you can substitute imitation vanilla if that is what you have on hand.
- Sourdough starter: You can use active sourdough starter or sourdough discard straight from the fridge.
- Egg yolk
- Red food coloring: I used liquid red food coloring in this recipe. I do not recommend natural food coloring. My first test of this recipe I used Watkins natural red food dye and 365 red food coloring. The color did not hold up in the oven and the cookies appeared brown. If you avoid artificial dyes you can skip the red food coloring altogether.
- White chocolate chips
How to Make
Step 1: Make the cream cheese filling. This process is very similar to making cream cheese frosting. Simply use a stand mixer or hand mixer to beat the cream cheese filling until it is light and fluffy. Add the flour, powdered sugar and vanilla. Continue to beat until it is well combined.
Step 2: Drop the cream cheese frosting into individual portions on a cookie sheet and freeze while you prep the cookie dough.
Step 3: Make the cookie dough. Add the red food coloring to the wet ingredients. This helps to incorporate the food coloring evenly throughout the dough.
Step 4: Fill the cookie dough. Use your fingers to gently make a depression in the center of the cookie dough. Take a piece of frozen cream cheese filling and shape the dough around it. Roll the dough into a ball. From here you can either chill the cookie dough for up to 3 days in advance or freeze the cookie dough balls.
Step 5: Bake the cookies. Bake in oven preheated to 350F. Allow to cool 5 minutes in pan, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Drizzle with melted white chocolate.
How to Store
Because of the cream cheese filling, I recommend serving these cookies immediately or storing these cookies in the fridge in an airtight container. They can be reheated for 10 seconds in the microwave to reheat the center or you can reheat them in the oven set to 350F for 2-3 minutes.
How to Make Vegan
To make these cookies vegan, substitute the butter for your favorite vegan butter and egg replacer. I recommend Earth Balance and either a flax egg or Bob’s Red Mill vegan egg replacer.
You must also omit the cream cheese filling if making vegan. The cream cheese filling does not work with vegan cream cheese. I did test this using Trader Joe’s vegan cream cheese. The cookies ended up spreading out into a sticky mess due to the oil-base of the vegan cream cheese. They did taste delicious though!
Sourdough Red Velvet Cookies
Ingredients
Cream Cheese Filling
- 4 oz cream cheese softened to room temperature
- 1½ cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Cookie Dough
- 1¼ cups all purpose flour
- ¼ cup cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- ½ cup brown sugar packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup sourdough starter active or discard is fine
- 1 egg yolk
- ½ tablespoon red food coloring
- ½ cup white chocolate chips melted
Instructions
Make the Cream Cheese Filling
- In a medium mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy (approximately 1 minute). Add the powdered sugar, flour, salt and vanilla extract and continue to beat until well combined.
- Scoop the filling onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, using a 1 teaspoon measuring spoon. This should yield 24 scoops. Space the filling scoops about 1 inch apart.
- Place the baking sheet in the freezer while you make the cookie dough.
Make the Cookie Dough
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a medium saucepan, melt 6 tablespoons of butter over medium heat, stirring frequently. Once the butter is melted, continue to stir until the butter develops a nutty aroma and starts to turn golden brown. Remove from heat and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir until melted.
- To the browned butter, stir in the brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, sourdough starter and egg yolk, and food coloring in that order.
- Pour the butter mixture over the flour mixture. Stir until combined.
Fill the Cookies and Bake
- Use a spoon to scoop 24 cookie dough balls (each measuring approximately 1½ tablespoons of cookie dough) onto 2 cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. You can also weigh the cookie dough balls for accurate measurements. Each dough ball should measure about 27 g.
- Use your thumb to make a depression in each cookie dough ball.
- Place a chilled cream cheese ball in each depression. Gently shape the cookie dough around the cream cheese ball to completely cover it, forming a uniform cookie dough ball. Return to baking sheet. Repeat process with remaining cookies.
- Bake the cookies for 12 minutes. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Drizzle with melted white chocolate and allow to set before serving.
