Giant New York Style (Levain bakery) Chocolate Chip Cookies With Walnuts
cookies, chocolate chips
These New York / Levain Bakery style cookies are oversized with a golden crispy exterior and loaded with chocolate chips and walnuts. Enjoy them while they are still warm and gooey in the middle or wait until they are completely cool for a chewier cookie experience. They are perfect for a snack or dessert and very dunkable! They are easy to make and require no chilling and no need to soften butter either - so that means you can make the dough and bake the cookies off and enjoy them in no time at all!
What Are Levain Bakery Style Cookies?
Levain Bakery in New York City /NYC is renowned for its oversized cookies, particularly the chocolate chip cookie, which is often described as having the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. Their cookies are known for being 6 oz each, with a crispy exterior and gooey center. Chocolate chip Cookies are my favorite cookie so I had to recreate this style of cookie and I got to say it is one of my favorite desserts. They are a real treat and each bite is loaded with chocolate.
New York Style Chocolate Chip Cookies Ingredients:
- BUTTER: I used unsalted butter because it makes it easier to control the amount of salt in recipe. And for this recipe its ok to use chilled butter but cut it up into cubes or small pieces - no need to wait til its softened or room temperature
- WHITE SUGAR: You can use granulated white sugar or organic cane sugar.
- BROWN SUGAR: The combination of white sugar and light brown sugar give these cookies their distinct texture.
- FLOUR: I recommend using all-purpose flour to make these chocolate chip cookies. You could definitely make them gluten free with a good quality flour like Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 gluten free baking flour. See below for a cake flour addition.
- CHOCOLATE CHIPS: I like to use half dark chocolate chips and half semi-sweet chocolate chips for a more complex flavor but you could do all semi sweet if you prefer or mix it up with some milk chocolate chips
- EGGS: There are two in this recipe. Make sure they are room temperature so that they get incorporated into the dough evenly.
- BAKING SODA & SALT: For leavening and to balance out flavours. Please ensure your baking soda is still active and not expired otherwise you will get flat cookies. I use sea salt but you can easily use table salt too.
- CORNSTARCH: A little goes a long way - cornstarch helps make these cookies more tender. Don’t skip it even though it may seem unusual.
- VANILLA: A definite must in this recipe - they just won’t be the same without it for that delicious flavour vanilla adds to them. I use pure vanilla extract for best flavour.
- WALNUTS: I use raw walnuts and I rough chop them. Feel free to swap them for other nuts (pecans, almonds, hazelnuts) or leave out if you have nut allergies. There is a recipe note below to consider if you are omitting the nuts altogether.
- ESPRESSO POWDER: I love to add a little to these cookies for flavor. It is optional but it deepens and intensifies the chocolate flavor, making it richer and more complex without necessarily tasting like coffee. It acts as a flavor enhancer.
How to Make These Chocolate Chip Cookies
They are quick and easy to make.
- WHISK the dry ingredients together: flour, baking soda, salt, espresso powder and cornstarch. Set aside.
- CREAM cold butter with the sugars until fluffy.
- ADD the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until just combined
- MIX/FOLD in the walnuts and the chocolate
- SCOOP and portion dough out and place on a lined baking sheet.
- BAKE the cookies 10-12 min then remove top until edges are golden brown. The centre might still look a little unset and that is fine - they will continue to bake even after coming out of the oven while they sit on the hot baking sheet. Make sure to bake them with the oven rack placed in the middle of the oven.
- COOL in the baking pan completely.
New York Style (Levain bakery) Chocolate Chip Cookies Use Cake Flour But These Don’t - Why?
Yes most if not all recipes for these cookies call for using cake flour plus all purpose flour - half each. Cake flour makes cookies softer, more tender, and cake-like by reducing gluten development due to its low protein content, resulting in LESS chewiness, a finer crumb, paler color, and less crispy edges, perfect for soft, pillowy cookies. If that is what you would like in your cookies then by all means use half all purpose flour and half cake flour for cakey cookies. I like these a little on the chewy side and more cookie-like so I use all purpose flour. So it really is up to you and what kind of texture you want in your cookies.
NYC style Chocolate Chip Cookie Baking Tips
Cookies can be a bit finicky sometimes. You have all your ingredients and you have read through all the directions carefully and then you bake them and they are not quite right and you just don’t know what went wrong. Here are a few things to help trouble shoot when baking a fresh batch. Each recipe can have a slight variation and that is why it’s important to try and stick as closely to the directions in the recipe. There are a few things that can effect the baking time and things to keep in mind.
- Measuring Carefully: Measure out all your ingredients carefully for best results - that goes for all baking. I always use standard Anchor Hocking Glass Measuring Cups - the ones most people have. I don’t like the scoop kinds because I have found they allow for too much variance. Too much sugar gives you flat cookies. Too much Flour creates dry cookies, too much sugar can cause cookies to spread etc…
- Size Matters: The size you make the cookies will affect the baking time. Making them larger than the recipe calls for will require longer baking time and vice versa.
- Oven rack placement: It’s important to bake them in the middle of the oven for consistent baking results. Most cookie recipes will let you know specifically where to place the rack - it will affect baking time and could cause cookies to burn if rack is low and baking time isn’t adjusted.
- Baking sheet choice: What you bake them on makes a difference too. Ideally choose a baking pan that is heavy-gauge, dull and light (in colour) aluminum. It doesn’t have to be fancy but the ones to avoid are dark nonstick ones and the very thin ones. The dark ones absorb extra heat – which causes cookies to burn or over-brown. The thin cookie sheets warp easily which means they’ll heat unevenly affecting the baking time on your cookies. Also never place cookie dough balls on warm baking sheet - cookies will spread.
- Preheating your oven: I can’t stress this enough - make sure your oven is preheated and actually reaches the temperature needed. Using an oven thermometer will ensure this.
Make Ahead, Storage & Freezing
- MAKE AHEAD: You can make the dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then bake as normal.
- STORAGE: Baked and cooled cookies can be stored in and airtight conainer for up to 1 week.
- FREEZING DOUGH: Place dough into a large ziploc bag and flatten. Freeze up to 3 months. Let dough defrost fully (overnight in the fridge is ideal), and then continue with baking instructions.
- FREEZING DOUGH BALLS: Scoop and roll cookie dough into balls and place on lined baking sheet - place in the freezer on baking sheet a flash freeze for 1-3 hours until frozen solid. Then remove from baking sheet and place in a freezer safe bag and place back in the freezer and store for up to 3 months. Let cookies defrost to soften when ready to bake – then continue with baking directions in recipe below or bake from frozen baking them for an extra few minutes.
- FREEZING BAKED COOKIES: Allow cookies to cool completely then store in a freezer-safe zip-lock storage bag labelled. They can either be stored all together as is or individually wrapped or separated with waxed paper or parchment. When you want to eat one, take it out and let it sit at room temperature or warm it in the oven or microwave for a few minutes.
More Cookies You Will Love:
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup Cold Butter cut into small cubes (2 sticks)
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- ½ cup granulated Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon Cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)
- 2 cups Chocolate Chips (I like to do half dark chocolate and half semi sweet)
- 2 cups Walnuts roughly chopped
Directions
- Preheat oven to 410°F.
- Whisk together flour, cornstarch baking soda and espresso powder
- In large mixing bowl, cream together cold cubed butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 2-3 minutes or until creamy.
- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. Followed by the vanilla
- Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined –do not over mix. I like to leave some traces of flour.
- Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts (*or extra ¼ cup flour if you are skipping the walnuts). If you are having trouble folding everything in I strongly recommend using your hands and gently folding the dough over itself in the mixing bowl until you have it all incorporated. Make sure to use spatula to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl as well.
- Separate dough into 8 extra large tall shaped balls and place on silat or parchment lined cookie sheet. The balls will be about 5-6 oz each, if using a kitchen scale or about ¾ cup of dough (I usually cut the dough in half then each half in to halves and continue til you have 8). Bake only 4 cookies on one large cookie sheet at a time.
- Transfer baking sheet to preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown on the top.
- Let them rest for at least 15-60 minutes on cookie sheet to set fully. 15 minutes for super gooey cookies - or until they are fully cooled for a chewy cookie experience.
Recipe Note
- If you would like the cookies to be flatter with no middle mound - no problem. Simply gently press down on dough to flatten dough balls just a bit to ensure even baking after you scoop them onto baking sheet.
