Name: Brown Butter Sourdough Apple Cider Cookie Recipe
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 16 min
Total time: 5 h 1 min
Yield: 24
Cuisine: Cookies
Ingredients: 230 grams (16 Tbs) Butter, unsalted; 165 grams (3/4 Cup) Cane Sugar; 205 grams (1 Cup) Brown Sugar; 3 Egg Yolks; 200 grams (3/4 Cup) Sourdough Starter, active or discard; 170 grams (1/2 Cup) Apple Butter; 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla; 380 grams (3 Cups spooned/leveled) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour; 1 tsp Sea Salt; 1 tsp Cinnamon; 1/2 tsp Ginger; 1/4 tsp All-Spice; 1/4 tsp Cardamom; 1/4 tsp Nutmeg; 1 tsp Baking Soda; 1 tsp Baking Powder; 150 grams (3/4 Cup) Bittersweet or Dark Chocolate Chips; 100 grams (1 Cup) Pecans, chopped; 70 grams (1 1/2 Cup) Dried Apples, chopped; 2 Cups Apple Cider, unfiltered - to reduce first; 1 Cup Cane Sugar; 4 Tbs Butter, salted; 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream; 1/4 tsp Sea Salt; 1/2 tsp Cinnamon; 1/2 tsp Vanilla

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Drizzled with apple cider caramel sauce, this sourdough apple cider cookie recipe is the perfect fall and winter cookie! These cookies have the perfect balance of spice and sweetness, filled with melty dark chocolate, savory pecans and delicious dried apples.

This cookie is decadent and delicious with everything that makes a cookie perfect. It is gooey in the middle with a crispy edge, topped with a drizzle of apple cider caramel sauce and a sprinkle of flaked sea salt. This is the perfect cookie for a special occasion, to gift to a new neighbor or friend, or just for an extra special family treat.

When the weather starts to cool, I immediately begin to crave the warmth of fall spices such as cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg. This cookie blends all of these delicious spices together while balancing the sweetness of the dark chocolate and slight tartness of the apple cider caramel sauce. Apple butter gives this cookie a new level of coziness and depth of flavor. This is not your average chocolate chip cookie!

With the sourdough added in, you can make this dough ahead and leave it to ferment in the refrigerator for 24-72 hours for the fermentation benefits of sourdough. It also works great as a sourdough discard recipe.

chocolate chip cookies with caramel sauce and sea salt flakes sprinkled on top

Brown Butter Sourdough Apple Cider Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

Cookie Dough:

Butter, unsalted – high quality and high fat butter, this is the organic butter I use and purchase for a low price in bulk.
Cane Sugar
Brown Sugar
Egg Yolks
Sourdough Starter, active or discard – find a recipe to make your own sourdough starter in just a week here if you do not have one already!
Apple Butter – high quality, organic apple butter or homemade apple butter is the best here!
Vanilla
Unbleached All-Purpose Flour – my favorite all-purpose organic flour to use for all of my sourdough recipes!
Sea Salt
Spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and all-spice
Baking Soda
Baking Powder
Dark or Bittersweet Chocolate Chips – we prefer these bittersweet chocolate chips, but use whatever high quality dark chocolate chips you like
Pecans, chopped
Dried Apple Slices, chopped – purchase these in the bulk section at the grocery store or find them here from Azure Standard. Fresh apples will not work in this recipe as it will make the batter too wet. You could also use apple slices you dehydrate yourself if you have a dehydrator! When the apples are in abundance around us, I love to find different ways to use them up. Dehydrated apples are so delicious for snacks!

Apple Cider Caramel Sauce:

Apple Cider – I look for unfiltered organic apple cider at the store. Nothing with extra ingredients added, just plain apple cider!
Cane Sugar
Butter, salted – again, use the highest quality butter you can find. I use salted here, but you can use unsalted if that’s what you have.
Heavy Cream – preferably organic heavy cream without gums or additives.
Cinnamon
Sea Salt
Vanilla

Tools You May Need:

Saucepan
Whisk
Stand Mixer or Hand Whisk/Bowl
Kitchen Scale
Measuring Cups/Spoons
Cookie Scoop
Two Baking Sheets + Cooling Racks
Parchment Paper or Silicone Baking Mat

Instructions for this Sourdough Apple Cider Cookie Recipe

Brown the butter

Place butter in a small saucepan, melt over medium-low heat and then lower to a simmer. Allow to simmer on low for about 10-15 minutes until the butter has browned and has almost a nutty smell. Pour the butter into a mixing bowl and allow to cool while beginning the apple cider caramel sauce.

Apple Cider Caramel Sauce

In the same saucepan, pour 2 cups of apple cider and set the heat to medium-high, bringing it to a boil. Boil the apple cider for about 15-20 minutes until the cider has reduced to 1/3 cup. Once it has reduced, lower heat to medium-low and add the sugar. Whisk constantly till the sugar dissolves.

Once the sugar and apple cider reduction have melted together, add the butter and heavy cream. Simmer the mixture on low for about 5 minutes until it begins to thicken, stirring constantly.

caramel sauce whisking butter in — apple cider reduction

Remove from heat and mix in the cinnamon and vanilla. Allow to cool a bit before transferring it to a glass jar stored at room temperature. This will be the glaze to add onto the baked cookies, but it also makes a delicious addition to coffee or tea!

Make the cookie dough for the sourdough apple cider cookie recipe

In a stand mixing bowl, combine the browned butter, cane sugar and brown sugar. Mix with paddle attachment (or hand mixer) on medium-high speed till well combined. It will not get fluffy because the browned butter is in its liquid state. Add the sourdough starter and egg yolks. Mix on medium till it is well combined, then add the apple butter and vanilla and mix together.

Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, sea salt, and all the spices. Mix on low speed till everything is combined. Lastly, add the dark chocolate chips, chopped pecans and dried apples. Mix till just combined.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours. If you would like to long-ferment the dough, you can leave the dough in the fridge for 24-72 hours to get the benefits of sourdough in your cookie dough.

Bake the Cookies

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350℉. Use a large cookie scoop to scoop them out onto two lined cookie sheets. I like my cookies to be uniform so I weight them out. To make 24 cookies, they should each weigh around 68 grams. Otherwise just scoop about 3 tablespoons of cookie dough out onto the cookie sheet and ball them up, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie dough ball.

Bake in the oven for 16-18 minutes. If you want to flatten the cookies a bit, when they come out of the oven, drop the pan on the counter (with a towel down) one or two times right after pulling them out. I like the flat cookies, my husband prefers the fluffier fuller cookies, so each to his or her own! 🙂

After they cookies have cooled a few minutes, transfer them to a cooling rack. Drizzle the apple cider caramel sauce over all the cookies and then sprinkle flaked sea salt on top. Let rest for a few minutes and enjoy warm!

Store leftovers in an airtight container up to 4 days.

Freezing Option

These are great to freeze as well! Place raw cookie dough balls on a small cookie sheet or plate and place in the freezer for 1-2 hours. Once they are frozen, transfer to a freezer ziploc bag and store in the freezer for up to 6 months. When ready to bake, bake at 350℉ from frozen for 16 minutes.

apple cider cookie recipe cookies on baking rack with apple cider caramel drizzled on top

Variations for this Brown Butter Sourdough Apple Cider Cookie Recipe:

You can leave the pecans out of this recipe if you prefer, or switch them for chopped walnuts. The pecans are very subtle in the cookie once they are baked, but compliment the browned butter and the sweetness.
Dried apples are the only recommendation as fresh apples will be too wet and change the batter of the cookie. You can leave dried apples out altogether and there will still be plenty of apple flavor from the apple butter and spices. The dried apples are not overwhelming though, and really make this feel like such a cozy fall or winter cookie!
The added drizzle of apple cider caramel sauce is what makes these cookies so decadent and special, but if you do not have time for that, you can simply use a store bought high quality caramel sauce. Look for extra additives listed in the ingredients to make sure it is as clean as possible – corn syrup is most often used in place of cane sugar to make caramel which is best to avoid. You could also leave the caramel sauce off altogether and just sprinkle the cookie with flaked sea salt as soon as it comes out of the oven and it will still taste amazing.

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