Sourdough Brownies Might Be Better Than Bread

Bold Bakers, in January I love to experiment with sourdough recipes, it seems like the whole world is all into bread making around this time of year. However, I'm not gonna show you a traditional bread, I am gonna show you how to take my sourdough starter and make sourdough brownies. And these brownies are next level, they've got the built in flavor from the sourdough starter, they are rich, they are fudgy, probably the best you've ever had. So let's get started. So like many people, I did not know a lot about sourdough until five years ago, pre-pandemic. But today I'm very proud to say that my sourdough starter on BiggerBolderBaking.com is one of the internet's top sourdough starter posts, which is pretty insane, considering I didn't know anything about sourdough before I started. And I've been making mine for years, it's got great flavor, it's strong, it's boozy, I absolutely love it and it works so well in all my sourdough recipes. This is discard, it's not active, I didn't just feed it, it's just what you would normally discard. And what I need is four ounces. I like to use a weighing scale for accuracy, I always use a weighing scale when making any type of sourdough recipes. And then I want four ounces. Now later on, I'm gonna feed this guy and it'll be as good as new. Okay, so now let's talk chocolate, the other star of the show when you're making brownies. I like to use 72% bittersweet, semi-sweet has a little bit too much sugar in it. I wouldn't go darker than bittersweet even though it can be a little bit tempting sometimes. And just what I like to do is get a bar and chop it up. I don't recommend using chocolate chips because they have stabilizers and the quality can really vary. So I would say a good solid bar of chocolate. Into that I'm going to add in some butter and Dutch processed cocoa powder. Now in a lot of recipes you'll see just unsweetened cocoa powder, just regular cocoa powder that we use a lot of. But for these, because it's a special brownie with our sourdough starter, I'm going to use Dutch process. And I'll tell you why Dutch process is smoother, it's been treated well alkaline and it's richer, it's a more intense chocolate flavor. And actually one of the things I love about it is the color that it makes her baked goods. Really dark, really intense, almost like so brown, it's red, like I just absolutely love it. I'm going to take this away, I'm going to pop into the microwave for around a minute, a minute and a half and let everything melt together nicely. So my rule when melting chocolate in the microwave for all my recipes, I like to do it just, you know, when there's still some lumps of chocolate, because if you overheat chocolate, it'll burn. And unfortunately that is unsolvageable, but if you kind of just melt everything together and there's still some lumps of chocolate, let us continue to melt outside of the microwave with the residual heat and then you'll just ensure no burnt chocolate. And the reason I like to add the cocoa powder in at this stage and not with the flour later is to hydrate it. Cocoa powder is liquid chocolate, you know, dried, so you really get this intense smell from this batter already. I'm going to set this over here. So for this brownie recipe, normally I always do them by hand, but this time I need my mixer, I need a whisk because we are going to whip up our eggs, which are at room temperature because they whip up so much better. Our brown sugar, always brown sugar in the best brownie recipes. It adds moisture, makes them fudgier. It also adds caramel flavors, complements the chocolate. Really delicious, not just for sweetness people. And then next we're going to add in some white sugar. If you did all brown sugar, it would be too much. That's why we like to do a balance of the both. So for brownie recipes, you do always like to do a balance of both, not just all white because you get less flavor and less moisture. Too much brown sugar will make it very heavy and not as nice. So a nice balance always works out really well. So now here's where the magic happens. We are going to turn this up to high speed and we're going to whip these ingredients until they're really lovely and thick for around six to eight minutes or so. So you might be wondering why am I going to the trouble of whipping it up? Like what results does it yield? And I will tell you, you know that lovely, almost like a thin skin, like a crinkle top that you get on top of a brownie that comes from whipping up the eggs really, really well. Because what happens is you're almost creating a meringue like texture. So when it bakes, you get almost like a chocolate meringue layer on the top. It's wafer thin. You often see it when you have like box brownies, which are absolutely delicious. So this is the result it gives you. And I think it's a really nice one. So we're going to whip this up for around five to six minutes on high speed. We want it on high speed because you want to get a lot of air into it and get it nice and thick. And that's time. Let's have a little look at this. Beautiful, lovely, airy, bubbly mix. The perfect foundation for a fudgy brownie. Now into this, we're going to add in our chocolate mixture, which has been cooled at this stage, waiting to go in our sourdough discards. This sourdough starter is around six months old. I will admit that the last one I lost in a fridge accident. I opened up the fridge one day and the jar had exploded, literally had exploded, which I heard is rare, but does happen. So I wasn't shocked that it happened to me. But so I had to start a new one. And this one actually, I think, is done better than the last one. So much flavor makes great bread. And now brownies. Lovely. Every last bit in there. And of course, something to extract in next. And salt for yumminess. There we go. Give that a quick mix up on the machine again, on a lower speed. While the machine is on low, I'm going to add in that little bit of flour that gives our brownies structure. With flour, we want to be very careful not to overmix, as it can toughen and create gluten that we don't want extra gluten in our brownies. So just mix it until it's combined just like that. Low speed. And there you have it. Possibly the best brownie batter in the world. This is one incredibly thick batter. I don't know if I've ever made a brownie batter this thick. Look at that. So here I have an eight by eight inch pan prepared. And in goes our brownie batter. Whipping up the eggs and the sugar also helps the sugar dissolve a little bit. Because I have had brownies before where you can kind of taste the sugar granules, you know? So spread this out in your pan. Now, you might notice I didn't put chocolate chips in the batter. I had a debate. Not a lively one, but one with Ami, who you know from my Need to Know podcast, where she said she personally doesn't like chocolate chunks in her brownie. She likes just pure brownie. Is that what you like, Joey? Totally like. Yeah. So she met me halfway reluctantly. And I said, let's leave the brownie plain, but then let's put some bittersweet chocolate chopped on top. Some people like the texture of it, you know? I don't disagree though. Sometimes you just want like all the fudge and no disruption of a chocolate chunk. So we're going to scatter that on top. Lovely. And that's it. That's how simple it is to make sourdough brownies. Let's not hang around any longer. My oven is preheated, so let's get them in there. So we're going to bake our brownies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, 180 degrees Celsius for 35 to maybe 40 minutes. But we want still to have a sweet little jiggle in the middle. That jiggle means that they're fudgy. When they cool down, they'll still be fudgy on the inside. So we want to be careful not to over bake them. So honestly, with my brownies, I like to bake them off the day before until they're completely cooled and set, and then I serve them. These look fantastic on top, and I cannot wait to cut into them and show you what they look like on the inside. This batch of brownies is wall to wall fudge. Check that out. Nothing but a sea of fudgy brownie. But this brownie is extra special with the addition of sourdough starter. Because these brownies are a little bit extra, I always serve mine with a scoop of pure vanilla ice cream on top and a little bit of chocolate sauce. I heard someone say that sourdough brownies are going to be the next viral sensation for 2026. It was me. I said that. I hope you enjoyed this recipe, and I'll see you back here again really soon.