Bread newsletter no.13

Double chocolate sourdough cookies

Dear bread friends,

Hiii!! It’s been a little while, again! I’ve missed writing to you and I have so much to tell you!

Last time I wrote, I’d just moved into my new house and I was still recovering from my endometriosis related surgery. I am now feeling much more settled in my new place, it’s really started to feel like home and it’s such a nice space to be in.

Little scenes from my new home

I’ve been sick over the last few months (don’t worry, I’m ok though), which is why you haven’t heard very much from me and why I haven’t been baking so much. And don’t be concerned, I still LOVE bread! I’ve still been making a weekly loaf or two, but I haven’t been able to make the big batches like I was before. I really miss doing that and hopefully I’ll be able to again in the not too distant future.

Despite being sick, looking back at my photos I realised I’ve actually done quite a lot! Most excitingly:

1. I did a tiny reprint of my first book Live Laugh Loaf, because you asked for it! So you can now get one of not too many copies! These ones are being shipped from my lounge room hehe

2. Anddd now you can finally get a copy of Such Good Bread (my new cookbook)!! It took a little while to set up. Luckily I printed a couple hundred extra, so get one of these special first edition copies while they’re still available! These ones are shipping from Berlin, Germany.

And thank you SO much to everyone who supported the crowdfunding to make this little cookbook dream of mine a reality!! I loveee seeing you all receive your books!

A trip to Berlin to see Such Good Bread

In December I made a very last minute short notice trip to Berlin, Germany to get to celebrate the release of my new book Such Good Bread with the little team that helped me make it. My team members are Andreas, who has done such an amazing job of creating the layout for the book – I honestly could never have dreamt of anything better, and Ole, who is responsible for all of the behind the scenes logistics and helping with distribution. They are based in Berlin, where I lived for most of my 20s. We had the book printed in Hannover and shipped to our warehouse in Berlin, so I decided I just couldn’t wait for my copy to arrive in Australia, I had to go and get one myself!!

Seeing Such Good Bread for the first time IRL

Right before Christmas I made the journey to Berlin. It was an amazing moment, holding the full printed book in my hands in real life… seeing what I started out as post it notes glued into a Moleskine book turn into something that feels so professional and even has that special new book smell… it really felt like I was dreaming!!

The book launch, seeing all the copies at the Berlin warehouse, and signing copies to send off to you!

We also organised a little launch event for the book and it was so special to sit at a bookshop and meet so many of you who came to see me and to get to sign your books!! I’m hoping to do another similar event in Adelaide fairly soon, I’m just waiting on getting some more copies of the book shipped over to me as they’re all in Berlin at the moment.

The book launch in Berlin - soooo happy!!

Family

Since being back home in Adelaide I’ve been taking things as easy as I can, while doing a lot to help my parents who are older and needing more help than they did in previous years. I’m honoured to be able to help them but my life just looks so different now compared with a few years ago. Some of you may be wondering how my dad, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2022, is going. He is doing really well, so much better than we ever could have imagined and he continues to get stronger and recover from his treatment which, though it saved him, also took a lot out of him.

Sourdough starter experiments

I’ve been experimenting with feeding / not feeding my starter. In general, I LOVE being able to abandon my starter in the fridge. I usually leave it there unfed for about a week and almost always use it directly from the fridge without feeding again to make bread, and you guys have seen my bread – it’s good! It always tastes great and I get pretty decent oven spring too.

BUT I will admit that it’s great every now and again to give the starter some extra love by using something like Goldie (or keeping it somewhere nice and warm) to make it really happy. Here you can see a comparison of my still delish loaf made with slightly less happy fridge starter that hadn’t received a lot of love (right) vs. my loaf made with starter straight out of Goldie, after a few feeds (left)! It’s pretty cool to see what the yeast pets can do when they’re really really happy!

1. happy starter in my Goldie, 2 Left side loaf with happy starter, right side loaf with unfed starter

If you’re interested in Goldie, the lovely people at Sourhouse have also given me a discount code for you: MGQ23 and you can see Goldie here.

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And now, a recipe for you! I’m obsessed with sweet things… can you tell? :)))

Love,

Mary Grace

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Double chocolate sourdough cookies

These cookies are unashamedly inspired by Subway cookies, which were a major highlight of my teenage life. The defining features of a Subway cookie, and also of these, are a slightly crunchy outside, a squishy middle, and a very particular, very good, flavour created by the combination of the darker cocoa in the cookie together with the white chocolate chips, which turn into puddles in the middle of the cookie.

These featured in Live Laugh Loaf, my first book (without a picture to accompany the recipe) and I have been dying to share the photos of them and a slightly updated recipe with you.

You can be adventurous and make these using your own freshly milled, sifted flour. This is my favourite way to make them because they are so much richer and somehow even softer and more caramelly. But, you can make them using white flour too and they are more like a classic, delicious cookie.

Makes approx. 24 cookies

Ingredients

100g sourdough starter or discard
1 tsp salt
240g brown sugar
100g white sugar
1 egg
240g margarine (or room temp butter but I prefer the resulting texture from margarine)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
40g cocoa powder
140g white chocolate buttons, loosely chopped, plus extra for topping
300g fresh milled wheat flour, sifted OR 350g strong white flour

Method

Making the dough

1. In a large bowl, combine sourdough starter, salt, brown sugar, white sugar, egg, margarine, baking powder, vanilla extract and cocoa powder using a dough whisk or a wooden spoon until all ingredients are well incorporated. Then add most of the white chocolate buttons and continue to mix. Then add flour (freshly milled OR strong white) and mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.

2. Take a large plate and using lightly wet hands, divide the dough into approx. 24 balls weighing 55-60g each. Make the balls neat and round.

3. Place the plate in the fridge covered with cling wrap for 2-12 hours. 1 hour is also ok, but 2 is better. At this stage you can also freeze some of your dough balls and bake them at a later date.

   Baking the cookies

4. When you’re ready to bake your cookies, preheat your oven to 190C / 375F.

5. When your oven is fully preheated, take your dough balls out of the fridge. Place onto a baking tray, leaving room for spreading during baking. You will need to bake these in batches.

6. Top each dough ball with some your remaining pieces of broken white chocolate buttons, this will create a nice chocolate puddle effect. Squish each dough ball down a little so that it becomes somewhat flatter.

7. Bake at 190C / 375F for 14-16 minutes.

8. As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, if you have a cookie cutter or a crumpet ring, ‘scoot’ them by swirling them around inside the ring so that they become a more neat round shape.

9. Allow to cool on the tray for 15 minutes and then transfer carefully to a cooling rack. Repeat for all remaining batches of cookies. Finally, enjoy these addictive and aesthetically pleasing biscuits!

Thank you for reading <3

PS Let me know if you make them!!