Sourdough Strawberries and Cream Cookies

My sourdough strawberry cookies are filled with white chocolate chips and pieces of strawberry speckled throughout each bite. These sourdough discard cookies are the perfect cookie for warmer weather. They make a great addition to Easter, Mother’s Day or any summer holiday. 

Why You Will Love these Sourdough Strawberry Cookies

The combination of strawberries and white chocolate create a delicious cookie that is reminiscent of strawberries and cream. The sweetness of strawberries contrasts the sour flavor from sourdough starter quite nicely (also check out my strawberry sourdough sweet rolls).The best part is they can be made start to finish in under two hours.

How to Use Sourdough Starter in Strawberry Sourdough Cookies

The key to making cookies with sourdough starter is to avoid adding too much liquid. Excess liquid makes cookies more cake-like, rather than soft and chewy. 

To reduce the liquid in this recipe, I opted to use freeze dried strawberries. Freeze dried strawberries create a medium to absorb some of the extra liquid from the starter while maintaining a strong and delicious strawberry flavor. 

Ingredients and Substitutions

• Flour: I recommend all-purpose flour or bread flour for this recipe. 
• Salt
• Baking soda
• Butter: I recommend unsalted butter but you can use salted if that is all you have. I would reduce the salt in the recipe by 1/8 teaspoon if you are using salted butter. 
• Brown sugar
• Sugar
• Vanilla: I highly recommend pure vanilla extract although you can substitute imitation vanilla if that is all you have. 
• Sourdough Starter: Ideally, your starter should be close to 100% hydration although it should still work if you don’t exactly measure your ingredients when feeding your starter. It just may affect the consistency of the cookies slightly.
• Egg yolk: We only use the egg yolk in this recipe. 
• White chocolate chips: You can use any type of chocolate chip to substitute for the white chocolate chips if desired. 
• Freeze dried strawberries: I have not substituted fresh strawberries in these cookies. I suspect that doing so would make the dough too wet so I do not recommend making this substitution (although please let me know in the comments if you try it!)

How to Make 

Step 1: Brown the butter. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Step 2: In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. 

Step 3: Add the brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla. Mix to combine.

Step 4: Stir in the sourdough starter and egg yolk. 

Step 5: Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Stir until mostly smooth.

Step 6: Stir in the freeze dried strawberries and white chocolate chips.

Step 7: Chill for at least 1 hour.

Step 8: Roll cookie dough into 1-1/4 inch balls. Place on baking sheet. 

Step 9: Bake. 

How to Make Ahead

There are several ways to make these cookies ahead of time: 

1. Bake and freeze. Store the baked cookies in a gallon freezer safe bag and pull out when needed. 
2. Freeze the cookie dough balls. Divide the cookie dough into cookie dough balls. Next, freeze them on a baking sheet, wrapped in plastic wrap, for two hours. Place the dough balls in a freezer safe gallon storage bag and use within 3 months. When ready to bake, follow instructions as written, adding 2-3 minutes to the bake time. 
3. Long ferment the dough in the refrigerator. You can keep the cookie dough in the fridge for up to 36 hours to long ferment. Bake as directed. 

How to Store 

Store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. They are best when consumed in 3-5 days. 

If you love sourdough, check out these other delicious sourdough recipes:

• Sourdough Lemon Bars
• Sourdough Lemon Cookies
• Sourdough Cranberry Orange Biscotti
• Sourdough Orange Cinnamon Rolls