Sourdough Sugar Cookies
Light, tender and incredibly delicious, these no-chill sourdough sugar cookies melt in your mouth. Pair them with buttercream for a sweet and delicious treat. You will love them!
Servings: 36 3 inch cookies
Equipment
- 1 cookie cutter 3-4 inches
- Mixer or hand mixer
Ingredients
Sourdough Sugar Cookies
- 226 grams unsalted butter softened, 1 cup butter
- 310 grams granulated sugar about 1 1/2 cups
- 1 large egg about 50 grams
- 100 grams sourdough discard 100% hydration, see recipe notes, scant 1/2 cup
- 4 grams vanilla extract about 1 teaspoon
- 4 grams almond extract optional, but highly recommended, about 1 teaspoon
- 400 grams all-purpose flour about 3 cups
- 50 grams cornstarch about 6 Tablespoons
- 10 grams baking powder about 2 teaspoons
- 5 grams cream of tartar about 1 teaspoon
- 4 grams salt about 3/4 teaspoon
Buttercream Frosting
- 226 grams unsalted butter 1 cup butter
- 375 grams powdered sugar about 3 cups
- 4 grams vanilla extract about 1 teaspoon
- 4 grams almond extract about 1 teaspoon
- 3 grams salt about 1/2 teaspoon
- 50 grams heavy cream about 3-4 Tablespoons, see recipe notes
Instructions
Sourdough Sugar Cookies
- To a medium-sized bowl, add the dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar. Fluff together with a fork.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until completely combined and you have one cohesive chunk of dough that sticks together. If you pick up a piece of dough, it should roll into a ball in your fingers with little to no residue left behind. If it's too sticky, add a little more flour. At this point the dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap and stuck in the refrigerator to long-ferment if desired.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F regular bake or 325°F convection. Prepare one or two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Lightly flour a countertop or pastry mat Add a little flour to the top of the dough or flour a rolling pin. Turn the dough out onto the counter and roll the dough to about 1/4 of an inch thick, flouring a little as needed, though be careful to not over-flour the dough. If you want a crispier cookie, roll the dough a little thinner to 1/8 of an inch.
- Using a cookie cutter (affiliate link), cut shapes out of the dough. Try to place your shapes as close together as possible to use up as much dough without needing to re-roll. Place cut cookie dough on a parchment-lined cookie sheet with a little space in between each cookie.
- Bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes (or 325°F convection for 8-9 minutes). For a crispier cookie, bake an extra minute or two. Let cookies cool for a few minutes before removing from the pan to cool. Continue this process, re-rolling scraps together once or twice until all your cookie dough is used up. Let cookies cool completely before frosting or freezing.
Buttercream Frosting
- Add the unsalted butter to a medium-sized mixing bowl. Use a hand mixer and whip the butter until light in color. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, salt and most of the heavy cream.
- Whip together until the buttercream is light and fluffy. Add in the rest of the heavy cream as needed until you get the consistency you like. Continue whipping the buttercream together until it is light and fluffy. The key to a good buttercream is in the mixing. Mix for 5-7 minutes until silky smooth.
- Pipe buttercream on cooled cookies. This recipe yields enough to frost these cookies. If you like a lot of frosting, you may want to make 1.5 or two times the buttercream recipe.
Notes
Sourdough Discard: You can use fresh, bubbly sourdough starter or sourdough discard in this recipe. Depending on where in the fermentation cycle your discard is, it may be more or less runny. You may need to add a little extra flour to these cookies if your discard has more liquid. I also prefer a mild to non-existent sour flavor in these sourdough sugar cookies and am mainly using the discard for the moisture and to avoid waste. If you don’t mind a more pronounced sourdough flavor, use refrigerated discard up to a week or two old. I use 100% hydration sourdough discard.
Long-Fermented Sugar Cookie Option: If you want more fermentation benefits from sourdough, you can long-ferment these sugar cookies in the refrigerator overnight or up to a couple of days. Roll them out and proceed with baking the cookies.
Buttercream: I like to substitute 5 grams of almond extract in place of 5 grams of vanilla extract for an almond/vanilla flavored icing. If you don’t have heavy cream, you can use milk instead. Milk is not as thick as cream, so use about 20 grams and add a little more at a time as needed.
Freezing Cookies: These cookies freeze beautifully, frosted or unfrosted. Stack cooled unfrosted cookies. Place cookies in an airtight container and freeze. Pull out when ready to frost, and frost from frozen. You can also freeze frosted cookies. Frost cookies, then freeze on a baking sheet until frozen all the way. To thaw frosted cookies, pull out of the freezer and let thaw to room temperature. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Calories: 220kcal | Carbohydrates: 30g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 34mg | Sodium: 109mg | Potassium: 42mg | Fiber: 0.3g | Sugar: 19g | Vitamin A: 342IU | Vitamin C: 0.01mg | Calcium: 23mg | Iron: 1mg
