Soft and Chewy Sourdough Peanut Butter Cookies

Sourdough Peanut Butter Cookies

When you make sourdough peanut butter cookies,, you want to use quality creamy peanut butter. I suggest organic creamy peanut butter with zero preservatives, roasted peanuts should be the only ingredient.

If you use other kinds of peanut butter that have filler oils in them, that may result in not-so-great cookies.

You also want to make sure it’s unsalted. I call for unsalted peanut butter and butter in this recipe so we can add the right amount of salt ourselves.

How to Make Sourdough Peanut Butter Cookies

It is so easy to make sourdough cookies. The key to making a great sourdough cookie is weighing the ingredients with a kitchen scale, and making sure you mix the ingredients in the right order.

The order you mix the ingredients is what determines the texture of the cookie. I separated the ingredients into categories in the recipe card below to make it easier.

Long Fermenting Sourdough Cookies

You can absolutely long ferment these cookies to make them easier to digest. If digestibility is a concern for you, you’ll want to use an active bubbly sourdough starter to make these peanut butter cookies.

Once you get the cookie dough all mixed, simply ferment the cookie dough in the fridge for 24 hours before you roll it into balls and bake or freeze it.

Sourdough Discard Peanut Butter Cookies

You can use discard straight from the fridge, or you can use an active bubbly starter in this recipe. We consider these “sourdough discard” cookies because you use sourdough starter in the recipe, but we don’t use it for rising, and it is not necessary for the baking process.

So the starter is considered “discarded” into the recipe. I use a stirred-down active, bubbly sourdough starter in all of my sourdough cookie recipes. You can use flat sourdough discard from the fridge if you prefer.

Freezing Then Baking Peanut Butter Sourdough Cookies

My peanut butter cookie recipe makes about 20 medium cookies, so you can freeze the cookie dough balls and bake some more whenever you want. I usually bake five at a time, so that gives me four batches.

To freeze the dough, simply shape the cookies into dough balls and roll them in sugar like in the directions. Then place them in an air-tight bag and freeze them.

To bake the frozen cookie dough, take it out of the freezer and place it on a parchment paper-lined sheet pan. Let the dough thaw for about 30 minutes then bake as stated in the recipe. You may have to add 2-3 more minutes to the baking time.

Sourdough Discard

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Soft and Chewy Sourdough Peanut Butter Cookies

These sourdough peanut butter cookies are soft, creamy, chewy, and perfect for any occasion. You can store the cookie dough balls in the freezer and bake peanut butter sourdough cookies whenever! You can use an active sourdough starter or make these sourdough discard peanut butter cookies.

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• Prep: 10 minutes
• Cook: 15 minutes
• Total Time: 25 minutes

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Ingredients

• 340 g all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 150 g  natural creamy peanut butter
• 80 g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 100 g sugar
• 200 g brown sugar
• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
• 14 g vanilla extract
• 120 g sourdough starter (active or discard, hydrated)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the softened butter, peanut butter, white sugar, and brown sugar together until combined.
3. Scrape down the bowl and add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla extract, and sourdough starter.
4. Mix well until light and fluffy.
5. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold together with a spatula until combined.
7. Pour some extra granulated sugar into a separate small bowl. Using a cookie scoop, scoop the dough out into 1-inch balls, rolling them in the granulated sugar first before dropping them 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet.
8. Bake at 350°F for 12 minutes or until the cookies have puffed up and are set on the edges, but are still gooey in the middle.
9. Allow to cool completely before eating!

Kaitlynn Fenley Author, Educator, Food Microbiologist

Kaitlynn is a food microbiologist and fermentation expert teaching people how to ferment foods and drinks at home.

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