Fudgy chocolate cookies with a cracked white surface, using up sourdough discard. Fifteen cookies.

The three hour chill is not optional

The recipe says so directly, calling it mandatory for the next steps, and it is right.

This dough is made with oil rather than butter, so there is no solid fat to firm it up. Straight after mixing it is a loose batter you could pour.

Three hours in the fridge thickens it enough to scoop and roll. Attempting it warm gives you sticky hands and flat cookies.

Up to three days is fine, which makes this genuinely useful for planning.

Roll very generously in powdered sugar

A quarter cup on a plate, with the recipe noting you may need more.

Generously is the operative word. A thin dusting disappears into the cookie during baking and you lose the crinkle effect entirely.

A thick, opaque coating is what cracks apart as the cookie spreads, revealing the dark dough beneath. That contrast is the whole point.

Roll, then roll again if any dark patches show through.

Where the crinkle comes from

Worth understanding, since it explains why the coating matters so much.

The powdered sugar coating dries in the oven and forms a crust before the cookie has finished spreading. As the dough continues to expand underneath, that crust has nowhere to go and fractures.

Anything that stops the crust forming, including a thin coating or a wet dough surface, stops the cracking.

Neutral oil, not olive

A quarter cup, with the recipe specifying avocado oil and warning against olive.

Olive oil has a pronounced flavour that fights chocolate. Avocado, sunflower, canola or vegetable oil all work and contribute nothing but fat.

Oil rather than butter is what makes these fudgy rather than cakey. Butter contains water, which turns to steam and lifts a cookie; oil does not.

Sourdough discard, unfed

A quarter cup.

Discard is what you remove before feeding a starter, and it is mildly acidic. Here it adds a subtle tang against the chocolate and contributes moisture.

It is not leavening this recipe. The baking powder does that, and discard straight from the fridge has little rising power anyway.

Any discard works regardless of how long it has been sitting, as long as it smells sour rather than off.

Nine to eleven minutes, and take them out soft

The recipe is clear they will be soft coming out and firm as they cool.

That is the correct read. A crinkle cookie baked until it feels done in the oven is dry and cakey once cool.

Soft in the centre with set edges is what you want. They finish setting on the sheet.

Fifteen minutes on the sheet

Before moving them to a rack.

That is longer than most cookie recipes and it matters here. These are fragile while warm and they tear if lifted early.

Fifteen minutes lets the structure set enough to move them intact.

Thirty three to thirty five grams each

Which the recipe helpfully specifies alongside the volume measure.

Weighing gives you fifteen identical cookies that bake at the same rate. In a nine to eleven minute window, a cookie twice the size of its neighbour will be underdone.

A medium cookie scoop gets close enough if you have no scale.

Two inches apart

These spread meaningfully, which is what creates the cracks.

Crowded cookies run into each other and the edges that touch stay pale and soft rather than setting.

Storing

Airtight at room temperature for four days. The powdered sugar coating absorbs moisture from the cookie over time and can look patchy by day three, which is cosmetic rather than a problem.

Freezing the dough

The chilled dough freezes for three months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before scooping, since frozen dough will not take a sugar coating.