Sourdough Discard Chocolate Brownies
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Baking with sourdough is delicious, and whilst it seems time consuming, it feels worth making a sourdough starter just to create delicious sourdough discard chocolate brownies like this…
These brownies are incredibly fudgy, super chocolatey, and have the best texture and bake you could ask for. If you love sourdough, these are the insane sourdough version of my triple chocolate brownies.
What is sourdough starter?
When making sourdough, you have to create your own sourdough starter (or, you can buy some or take a family members or friends starter and share it) and it’s a delicious beast. This is technically a living culture that creates a more gut friendly bread (you don’t need to use yeast).
A natural side part of making or maintaining a sourdough starter is sourdough discard. Discard is basically the part of the sourdough starter that you remove from the jar before feeding and fuelling the sourdough starter.
Do you need to feed the starter?
To bake with the discard, you do not need to feed it. It’s the natural bi-product and it helps create the best flavour and texture in many bakes, such as in my sourdough discard blueberry muffins and my sourdough chocolate chip cookies.
Whenever I discard any of my sourdough starter, I add it to a jar with a sealed lid and place it in the fridge. It can stay here for any length of time recently, but over time it does start to break down and separate. I stir the jar slightly and then pour out of the jar and into the recipe. It stays fridge cold, and unfed.
What makes these different to regular brownies?
These brownies are based on my triple chocolate brownies, but have slight differences in recipe and method to account for the discard that is being used (it is 50% water and 50% flour) and also the ability to mix it into the recipe.
The method varies in that often you would whip the sugar and eggs together, and fold through the melted chocolate and butter, but because you need to counter in the discard, I stir this together with the eggs and sugar instead. The resulting texture is still incredibly fudgy and delicious, thanks to the discard.
Ingredient notes and tips
- Chocolate – I would always recommend using dark chocolate of at least 70% cocoa content in the brownies to make sure the base bakes properly. You can use any flavour chocolate chip to fold through at the tend (I used white)
- Butter – you can use a block butter, or a baking spread/margarine. All options work for a brownie, but a block butter often sets better.
- Sugar – You can use any sugar, I like to use light brown soft sugar, but caster sugar, golden caster sugar and even dark brown soft sugar are good alternatives.
- Eggs – I use four medium eggs, or three large eggs
- Plain flour – this is just a basic flour, you do not want any flour with raising agents inside
- Cocoa – I use a strong 100% cocoa powder as I love it to be as chocolatey as possible
When baking the brownies, I will always recommend to stick to the correct size tin, due to the volume difference in other tins. I use a 9″ square tin in my brownies, and I find it the best.
I bake my brownies until there is a small wobble in the middle, but sometimes this can be hard to see. It’s best to let the brownies cool fully in a tin because this helps them set into shape, and then also setting in the fridge helps perfect that texture.
Sourdough Discard Chocolate Brownies!
Ingredients
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 200 g dark chocolate (70%+ cocoa content)
- 4 medium eggs (or 3 large)
- 275 g light brown soft sugar
- 125 g unfed sourdough discard
- 50 g plain flour
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 200 g white chocolate (Chips/Chunks)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan and line a 9″ square baking tray with parchment paper.
- Melt together the unsalted butter and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water, on the microwave for 1-2 minutes until melted. Leave to the side to cool to room temperature!
- In a new bowl, add the eggs, sugar and discard.
- Mix these together until thoroughly combined
- Pour the cooled chocolate mix over eggs and fold together carefully.
- Add the cocoa powder and plain flour on top of the chocolate mix and then fold together again
- Fold through the chocolate chips and pour into the prepared tin – bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes
- Once baked, leave to cool fully in the tin and then set in the fridge for a minimum of two hours
Notes
- These brownies will last for a week, at room temperature or in the fridge
- These brownies will freeze for 3+ months
- I use this 9″ square tin in this recipe
Storage and freezing
These brownies are SO good from the day of being made, but they will definitely last for seven days, in the fridge, or at room temperature. I usually store them in a cake box, or in tupperware
You can freeze these brownies for 3+ months. I would recommend slicing and portioning the brownies before freezing, so you can get out as many as you need or want.
If you do freeze the brownies, you can remove them and thaw them in the fridge overnight, or you can thaw them on the side for a few hours.
Other sourdough bakes
If you want to start your sourdough journey, whether to make bread or make sourdough discard recipes, you need to make your own sourdough starter.
Make sure to check out my blog for more sourdough recipes!