Hey There! I’m Marlene,
The Sourdough Cookie Lady
If you’ve got a jar of sourdough discard and a sweet tooth, you’re in the right place. I create original cookie recipes that are easy, from scratch, and so good no one will guess there’s discard inside. Grab a cookie and stay awhile! I’m so glad you’re here.
Here you’ll find original sourdough cookie recipes for every craving, plus my favorite sourdough bakes and a little homemaking along the way.
A Few Of My Favorite Things
- Flavor: chocolate, always
- Dessert: brownies or French silk pie (yes, confession: it’s not cookies)
- Season: fall (Christmas is a close second)
- Drink: a homemade salted maple latte (usually decaf, shh)
- Kitchen soundtrack: gospel music
- Movies: Anne of Green Gables (the Sullivan version), The Emperor’s New Groove, and Ratatouille
- Colors: sage green and periwinkle
- Hobby: baking (I know, am I that predictable?!)
- Least favorite chore: dishes (the irony!)
- Mornings: crisp autumn ones
- Candles: especially my homemade beeswax candles
- Lighting: the cozy glow of lamps, especially in the kitchen
- Smell: pumpkin and apple desserts baking
- Little luxury: the first night on freshly cleaned sheets (why is that so magical?)
- Board games: Splendor, Dominion, and Exit escape-room board games (p.s. Monopoly is not the kind of game I mean when I say I like board games, haha!)
How I Became The Cookie Lady
My baking story actually starts with a flop. The first time I baked sourdough bread and cookies for a craft show, I worked for two straight days to fill my table. Only two people came to the show. I sold one loaf of bread. I packed everything up and told myself I’d never do that again, and I didn’t bake anything to sell for a whole year.
But God wasn’t done with that dream. A year later, I rented a booth at a local vendor space and started baking sourdough cookies. Then my bread landed in a local bakery. Then I opened a little farmstand and sold sourdough cookies and cinnamon rolls right from our porch.
My porch farmstand and bakery-drop days
Somewhere along the way, farmstand customers started calling me “my cookie lady” when they messaged me about my baked goods, and a couple of friends at church would greet me at potlucks with “Hey there, cookie lady!” Those friends didn’t even realize the cookies were sourdough. When I told them, I was renamed “The Sourdough Cookie Lady,” and I’ve happily worn the name ever since.
A Few Things To Know About Me
- I baked my first from-scratch cookies in September 2020, and they weren’t even sourdough.
- I’ve loved baking since I was a little girl. I love cooking too, but my sweet tooth gives baking the edge.
- I’m scared to try one cookie: mango habanero. My friends keep requesting it! Would you make it? Let me know.
- I can solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 30 seconds. And I mean for real, not just pulling the stickers off, haha!
- I’m a homeschooler at heart, though I did just about every type of schooling growing up. Homeschool was my favorite!
- I grew up in Florida and now live in a beautiful, bustling Southern town.
- I’ve never had a dog, but I’ve had cats, fish, turtles, hamsters, bunnies, birds, and pet chickens (never all at once!).
- I miss my chickens, especially Mel, my favorite of all time. Chickens in a neighborhood were a lot to handle, but I hope to have them again someday.
- I’m a recovering overthinker, learning to take one step at a time instead of waiting for perfection.
- I’m in my nostalgia era, collecting the classic pre-2005 American Girl books and keepsakes I grew up loving.
Why My Recipes Work
Mix and bake, whenever possible. I’ll be honest… I’m an impatient baker. When I want something sweet, I want it now! I’m not a fan of waiting through a 4- to 24-hour dough chill; I like to mix, then bake right away. So unless a flavor truly needs it, my cookies skip the dough chilling entirely, and you get a recipe you can just mix and bake.
Dense, chewy, gooey centers. I develop my cookies with mostly brown sugar and egg yolks only, so you get a bakery-style chewy or gooey middle instead of a cakey one. To me, these are the best kind of cookies!
Flour scooped right from the bag. No spooning and leveling. Every recipe is written for flour scooped straight from the bag, and the gram measurements match, so your cookies come out right without fussing. Quick and easy is key for me, especially when baking!
Simple, natural ingredients. I build recipes around natural peanut butter, dye-free sprinkles, and organic peppermint, so you can feel good about what you’re sharing.
Tested by my toughest critics. Before a recipe goes on the blog, it has to win over my parents, my grandparents, my husband, and my best friends, not just me.
Sourdough Is Easier Than You Think
After I made my very first sourdough starter, it took me months to try my hand at my first loaf of bread. I was honestly intimidated by it! So I started with discard recipes instead, like sourdough pancakes and discard desserts, and that’s where my love for sourdough baking really began.
I wish more people knew that sourdough starter is so much less finicky than it seems online. You don’t need a kitchen scale, a rubber band around your jar, or a starter at its “perfect peak.” You can even use cold starter or discard straight from the fridge. Your dough might just take a little longer to rise.
When I started, I timed everything exactly because I didn’t know how forgiving starter is. It’s flexible and resilient. I’ve found that if you’re not a perfectionist about it, you can use your starter at whatever stage it’s in and still make something delicious for your family.
My Kitchen
My most-loved kitchen tool is my vintage green KitchenAid. I found it on Facebook Marketplace for $40, and it’s both the centerpiece of my decor and my most-used baking tool, right along with my cookie scoops and stainless steel baking sheets. The man who sold it to me said it belonged to his grandmother, who made pasta for her local community! How fun that it gets to keep living on in my kitchen.
Everyone Has Flops
Never give up; everyone has bad moments in the kitchen! Here are a few of mine.
- The charcoal cookies: at a church Christmas party, I put holiday cookie dough in the oven and completely forgot about it until smoke poured out. The cookies were 100% black, a true Hallmark-movie moment. I really thought that only happened in movies, haha!
- The brown sugar flood: I once filled about 20 loaves of sourdough with brown sugar before I knew the right way to do it. It seeped onto the table and all over the floor just hours before a bakery drop-off.
- The cookie puddle: my first batch of sourdough sweet potato casserole cookies melted into one giant puddle on the pan. The funny thing is, I thought that would be one of my easiest recipes. It took me more trial and error than any other recipe so far, and I almost gave up on it!
Every flop taught me something, and those lessons go into the recipes I share with you.
Faith, Family & Working With My Hands
My faith in Jesus is at the heart of everything I create. As a born-again Christian, I have trusted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and I’m so thankful He’s blessed me with the creativity to share His goodness, whether that’s through a recipe, a story, or a plate of brand-new cookie flavors for my friends at church. It’s why Proverbs 31:13 hangs on my kitchen wall: “She… worketh willingly with her hands.” I think of it whenever I’m working hard for my family and creating recipes you can use to bless yours.
And family is a big part of that. My husband, Patrick, and I are childhood sweethearts. Turns out, we both liked each other all growing up, but didn’t know it until we were 23! You’ll see his work here, too: any photo with both of my hands in it, he took (the rest are mine). Along with Patrick, my parents, my grandparents, my two brothers and their wives (who are truly my sisters), my parents-in-law, my brother- and sister-in-law, and my best friends all mean the world to me.
I’m Rooting For You
Whether you’ve baked sourdough for ten years or just stirred together your very first starter, I want you to be able to bake any of my recipes with confidence. My goal is to share recipes so good that you can make any of them for the first time, for a party, with no backup plan, and know they’ll turn out great. That’s how much I believe in these recipes, and in you!
I’m here for you, I’m rooting for you, and I know you’re going to love this journey.
from my baking sheet to yours,
