Rippled Sourdough Protein Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know what you’re thinking—does the world really need another chocolate chip cookie recipe?
Maybe not, but I absolutely needed this one.
This recipe is the result of my long search for a cookie that combines the complex flavor of sourdough discard, brown butter and a little protein boost while still delivering that elusive, beautiful rippled spread. Most protein cookie versions bake up into thick, puffy domes, but after many tests, I finally cracked the code by cutting the baking powder and employing one simple trick during baking.

If you want the full butterscotch flavor, slightly crunchy outsides, and fudgy centers, all balanced with a hint of sourdough tang and a protein lift, this is the recipe I hope you’ll love.

 

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• Why You’ll Love This
• The Ingredients
• Substitutions
• Equipment Used
• How to Make this
• How To Store
• FAQ
• Other Recipes You Might Enjoy

Why You’ll Love This 

TL;DR

• Rippled, Not Puffy – Solves the common problem of protein cookies baking into thick, cakey domes.
• Protein Boost – Gives you an added nutritional lift without compromising classic flavor or texture.
• Deep Flavor- Uses brown butter and overnight chilling for rich butterscotch notes and intense flavor.
• Sourdough Tang- Sourdough discard adds complex, subtle tanginess that perfectly counters the sweetness.
• Chewy Center – Achieves that soft, almost fudgy center with slightly crisp edges.

Perfect Texture Plus Protein

I realize there are a million Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes out there, so I did wonder if the world needed another one. But what I just could not find was a recipe that had protein, sourdough and that perfect ripple I really want in my perfect cookie. Most of the protein versions were just puffy.

And I admit it took me a while to get to this. Protein powder is surprisingly resistant to spreading out in the oven, as it absorbs a lot of liquid. I tried adding more butter, milk, different types of flour, cooling and no cooling, different baking temperatures, more egg yolks…you name it.

The Secret – Not adding, leaving out

In the end I left out the baking powder entirely, which kept giving these protein cookies too much rise and employed a tiny trick during baking (Easy, I promise), but after about 20 different iterations and everyone around me getting tired of testing protein chocolate chip cookies, here they finally are:
Cookies that have protein AND ripples! And I’m darn proud of that achievement!

Use Up Sourdough Discard For Extra Flavor

When I think Chocolate Chip Cookie, I want the full butterscotch flavor you get from browned butter and good vanilla, slightly crunchy outsides and soft, almost fudgy centers, all studded with lots of melty chocolate puddles, both dark and milk.

A hint of sourdough tang and salt should be noticeable, just to counter the sweetness. Not much, only something beyond “just sweet”, which makes these absolutely irresistible. Sourdough discard adds exactly that tang.

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie Ingredients

When I was looking around for a protein cookie recipe I could modify, all I found was either said puffiness or ingredients like peanut butter, almond flour and similar shenanigans. But look, just because I want to add more protein to my diet, it doesn’t mean I want to go low carb or full keto!

I mean, baking with sourdough essentially rules out either of those extreme diets. Plus, my body just isn’t a fan of low carb.
So if you are in the same boat and just want chocolate chip cookies that have added protein, and apart from that ingredients you always have around, this is it.

That being said: The protein content in these isn’t crazy high and I’m good with that. They have a little boost that makes me feel good about eating them, which is all the excuse I need to munch cookies!

Super Easy To Make

If you can make cookies, you can make these. They are far from complicated, and the only “Tricky” thing is to get the butter browned perfectly.
There is hot butter, and a bit of hot sheet pan banging involved, so if you are making them with kids, give them a hand with those parts.

Ingredient Notes

Just a few notes on the most important ones. The full list with amounts is in the recipe card.

• Butter – Mine is always Irish butter, unsalted. Kerrygold is of course fabulous. But any good quality high fat butter will do. Get the best you can afford, as the flavor really shines in these cookies.
• Sugar – A mix of dark brown for chewiness and molasses flavor plus granulated for the typical crispy edges.
• Sourdough Discard – Both active (freshly fed) and discard up to 3 days old will work here. Just make sure to weigh it, as it differs wildly in volume.
• Baking Soda – Opposed to most cookies, you won’t find baking powder in this recipe, as it makes cookies that use protein powder puff up more and feel cakey instead of chewy in the middle. Which is exactly what we are trying to avoid here. However, spreading out is essential and baking soda helps to achieve that. Plus it balances the acidity from the sourdough discard.

Here is a picture of a protein cookie with Baking powder and without the pan-bang trick on the left (pan-banging didn’t make much of a difference in that version either) and on the right my cookie recipe with just soda.

• Vanilla Extract – I usually don’t list it, but in these chocolate chip cookies it’s such an essential ingredient, giving you that perfect butterscotch flavor together with the butter. So get the good stuff.
• I make my own these days – with about 15 vanilla pods in 2 cups Vodka, then leave it to stand for 6 months, shaking the bottle occasionally. There, you got an extra recipe. 😉
• Flour – All-Purpose is my flour of choice. While the original recipe adds a bit of bread flour, my version, due to the highly absorbent protein powder, it’s not recommended to use bread flour, which absorbs more water.
• Protein Powder – Whey Concentrate with vanilla flavor. I get mine from MyProtein.
• Salt – I use kosher salt. If you use fine sea salt or table salt, use only half the amount (approx. ½ teaspoon), as they are much denser by volume.

Mix-ins And Toppings

• Chocolate – After watching Claire Saffitz make her famous chocolate chip cookies a few years ago and trying the mix of dark and milk chocolate, there was no going back for me. Good quality eating chocolate works best to get those molten chocolate puddles, as chocolate chips are created to keep their shape.
• Flaky Sea Salt – Entirely optional as sprinkle on top. Give it a try though, it’s a revelation.

substitutions

This one is tricky, contrary to most of my recipes. The balance of the ingredients and method to get exactly this texture with the protein powder is “just so” for the ripples.

If you don’t care about said ripples and are fine with puffy cookies (or some that spread a bit too much), here is the list of alternatives:

• Butter – Vegan butter can work pretty well, if it has a high fat content.
• Sugar – Tricky, as most sweeteners don’t caramelize and that’s what gives you the golden brown colour and perfect butterscotch flavor. You could try xylitol for the granulated sugar, but personally I wouldn’t advise it.
• Sourdough Discard – If you’d like to make these without sourdough, replace it with ¼ AP flour and ¼ cup milk. While sourdough discard has water, the acidity also tenderizes and the milk fat will do a similar job.
• Egg – 50g (3 ½ tbsp) are your best bet to replace the egg in this recipe. (Thanks to Katarina and her book “The Elements of Baking”)
• Flour – Tricky, as GF mixes are so different. If you’d like to try one, I hear the King Arthur brand GF mix works pretty well. If you do, I’d love to hear from you in the comments how it went!
• Whey Protein – Casein protein (ideally vanilla flavor) might work, but add about 1-2 tbsp milk to make up for its higher liquid absorption. I have yet to find a vegan protein that works well in baking.
• Nora from “Nora Cooks” swears on Orgain, so that might be well worth a try. But again, I can’t get it here to test it myself.
• If you’d like to omit the protein powder altogether, use the same amount of AP flour instead. At which point you’ll want to add 1/4 tsp of baking powder back in.
• Chocolate – You can absolutely use vegan chocolate or white or add any sort of mix in you enjoy. My next plan are Kitchen Sink cookies.

Equipment Used

Essential

• Saucepan – Ideally with a light or metal interior for browning the butter. So you see the degree of browning.
• Heat Proof Bowl – A large bowl for mixing. I use heat proof glass, so you can see what I’m doing, but metal or plastic work just fine.
• Whisk – To mix the butter, sugar and egg.
• Spatula – For folding in flour and chocolate

Optional

• Cookie Scoop – Super helpful to get evenly sized portions. Mine is 35ml/2 ½ tbsp. That being said: 2 tablespoons work just fine.
• Stand Mixer – Entirely optional in this recipe. I just use it here because I have arthritis and my joints hurt.
• Sheet Pan – For baking. Lined with parchment. I tried greasing mine, but that got too hot and the chocolate melted out of the cookies, leaving holes. Similarly, silicone pads can lead to too much greasiness. So I would, in case of cookies, go with baking parchment.
• Large Round Cookie Cutter – Optional. Just for the final “scoot” to get perfectly round cookies.

Saucepan

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whisk

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Note:

Cups, due to the possibility of compacting the flour while dragging the container through it, can give you wildly different results. Use a tablespoon to gently fill the cup with flour, then drag the back of a knife over it to level. This should give you the closest to the standard 120g per cup of flour.

Alternatively, if you have kitchen scales, assume 120g flour per cup and weigh it out.

In many of my recipes I will give gram measurements for this reason, but you can always switch to the american measurements in the recipe card.

How to Make this

Preparations

• The order and temperature of your ingredients matters here. Everything except the butter (which gets browned and used hot) should be at room temperature. This is important for the final texture.
• Start the day before you want to bake your cookies, for perfect flavor and texture. You’ll thank me later.
• Line a sheet pan with baking parchment.
• Get all your ingredients ready.

• Chop the chocolate into chunks. Mine where about 1/4 in/0.5 cm. Maybe a tiny bit bigger. Put about 12-18 nice pieces of each type to the side, to top the cookies later. Keep all those lovely tiny chocolate shavings in the mix for the dough. They create a sort of chocolate marbling in the cookies.

Brown The Butter

• In a saucepan, melt your butter over medium high heat until it starts to wildly bubble. Stir the whole time, to get even browning. A silicone spatula is best, as it gets all those lovely brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
• When the bubble sizes and sounds start to change, lower the heat to medium low and keep stirring until it smells deliciously nutty and has a deep amber brown. Immediately transfer to your mixing bowl and add both sugars. Briefly stir, then allow to sit for about 5 minutes.

• This step, using still liquid butter, is the main difference between my recipe and most classic cookie recipes. Plus the lack of baking powder, which allow the cookies to spread despite the rather absorbent protein powder.
• Do not skip the browning, as that will keep too much water in the dough. Plus, that nutty flavor is amazing!

Mix The Wet Ingredients and Protein

• After the roughly 5 minutes have passed, start whisking the butter and sugar for a minute or so, until they look like very wet sand.

• Add the vanilla extract and egg and whisk for another 2 minutes (longer by hand) until the mix looks creamy, but not very fluffy. You don’t want to incorporate a lot of air into the dough, or the cookies will puff rather than ripple.

• Now add the protein and mix until incorporated, followed by the sourdough discard. Go gentle here with the stirring.

Fold In The Dry Ingredients and Chocolate Chunks

• Either in a separate bowl or on top of your batter, stir together the flour, salt and baking soda. Gently fold into the cookie dough. Don’t overmix, to prevent tough, rubbery cookies.

• Finally tumble in the chocolate pieces and fold them in too.

Scoop Your Sourdough Discard Cookie Dough

• Grab your parchment lined sheet pan and cookie scoop and portion out about 12 cookie dough balls.
• For now they can be all on one sheet pan, as it needs to go in the fridge overnight.

• But just one more step first: Get the chocolate pieces you put aside earlier and top each cookie with 2-3 of them. Then sprinkle with a little bit of flaky sea salt if you like.

Store The Dough In The Fridge Overnight

• Cover with cling film and refrigerate overnight. This step is critical for both flavor and shape.
• It allows the butter to firm up, the sugar to partially re-crystallize and the flavor to develop. There is a huge difference in the taste of a non-developed cookie and one that was allowed to spend the night hanging out in the fridge. And that’s not just with sourdough.
• Once they are cool, you could also freeze the cookie dough balls in freezer bags and bake them whenever the protein cookie craving hits.

Bake Your Rippled Sourdough Discard Protein Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Pre-heat your oven to 350°F/175°C.
• Line a second sheet pan with baking parchment.

• Transfer 6 of your cookie dough balls onto the second sheet pan with plenty of space between them and space out the ones on the first one. They spread a lot.
• Put ideally one at a time into the oven, for perfect results.
• Bake for about 5-6 minutes or until the outsides have spread out a bit and you see still a very unbaked “blob” in the center. Using oven mitts, take the tray out of the oven and firmly pan-bang it on your counter 2-3 times, until you see the center collapse and a ripple form on the outsides.

• Rotate and put them back into the oven for another 5-8 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown, while the center is still slightly underbaked.
• This is the secret to the perfect fudgy middle of chocolate chip cookies. They will continue to bake outside the oven for a few minutes. If they are not rippled enough yet or have a very puffy center, bang the pan again when taking them out.

Optional Step: The Cookie “Scoot”

• If you’d like perfectly round (and even more rippled) cookies, grab that large cookie cutter while they are still hot and soft. It should be slightly bigger than your biggest cookie.
• Holding the hot pan with a towel or oven mitt, pop the cutter over each cookie and rapidly move in circles, until your cookie looks perfect.

• Sprinkle with a little more sea salt if you like and allow to cool on the sheet pan for at least 10 minutes, so they can finish baking. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Enjoy your sourdough discard chocolate chip cookies while still slightly warm with a cuppa or glass of milk, for the perfect melty chocolate puddles!

How To Store

These Protein Sourdough Chocolate Chip cookies keep well in an airtight container at room temperature for about 3-4 days.

They freeze perfectly both unbaked and baked. To bake them from frozen, add a minute or two to the baking time, while keeping an eye on them. This way you have a freshly baked, still warm cookie whenever the craving hits.

To re-heat, I love using my air fryer, as it crisps them up within just about 4-5 minutes at 350°F/175°C. Just allow them to cool in the basket for a few minutes, as they will be soft again.

Watch The Video Here

Now I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Have you tried this? Did you enjoy it?
What other recipes would you like to see?

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