Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie Copycat

I was watching Bobby Flay's Throwdown the other day and saw an episode I had seen before, the chocolate chip cookie throwdown. The competition was Levain Bakery in New York City and they make a giant, gooey chocolate chip cookie. And by giant, I mean they use 6 ounces of dough per cookie. That's just under a half pound. Those cookies looked amazing. Then a day or two after that, I was watching The Best Thing I Ever Ate, the chocolate edition, on Food Network. One of the chefs picked Levain Bakery's Double Chocolate Chip cookie as the best chocolately thing they ever ate. Again, that giant, giant cookie looked amazing. So I decided to search up some copycat recipes and let me tell you, it's crazy out there. People left and right are trying to master the recipe, getting the cookies to be big and puffy and crisp and gooey. While I do have my own favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, I thought I'd give this one a try.

Here's a picture of the actual Levain Bakery cookie, now you know why I wanted to make one for myself:

Let me tell you know, this is one stiff cookie dough. I started mixing it with my hands because I got so tired of stirring. Also, from the Throwdown episode, I used walnut halves, not pieces. That way you get a big ol' piece of nut in the cookies. And my last tip, from the numerous comments on this recipe, I heard you should start with cold butter. Now if you're an experienced baker this should make you do a double-take. It is the golden rule that all ingredients should be at room temperature when you bake. This recipe says to start with cold butter and beat it with the sugars until it's light and fluffy, it supposedly helps lessen the spread when the cookies hit the oven. The recipe also says to do 4 ounce portions (smaller than the Levain cookies) but I don't have a food scale so I did 2-3 scoops with my #40 cookie scoop.

My camera was out of batteries so I had to use the camera on my iphone. My verdict: a delicious cookie but I'm unsure if it trumps my stand-by recipe. As you can see from the pictures, they're not as gooey as the Levain cookie. That was overbaking on my part, I know my oven runs hot so I tried to adjust but obviously didn't adjust enough. So with that in mind, perhaps it would have truly knocked my socks off if I hadn't overbaked. But don't get me wrong, it was a great cookie. I've never had a cookie that huge and puffy. What was really nice was the the outside was all crunchy and crispy but the inside was all soft. It was like a delicious cookie-scone. And I loved the huge walnut chunks, I don't usually put nuts in my cookies but now I might have to change my ways.

Cooling on the rack, the bottom row is 2-scoopers , the top rows are 3-scoopers. The 3-scoopers are pretty big (though in the picture they don't look that different), delicious, but a bit big.

I wanted gooey but overbaked it. I'll get you next time, Levain cookie, next time. (And look at the giant, puffy height! I've never baked a cookie this puffy before!)



Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie (Copycat recipe)

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add eggs and beat well until incorporated.

3. Add flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and mix until just combined.

4. Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts.

5. Portion dough into 4 or 6 ounce portions.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until cookies are very light brown. Cool on rack and store in airtight container.