Bake New York City's Famous Levain Cookies from Scratch at Home
The result of my 7th annual autumnal I-Miss-NYC weekend, this copycat Levain cookie recipe has picked up a lot of traction from my YouTube channel and, most recently, a gloriously thorough analysis and Levain cookie bake-off by Erika at The Pancake Princess. It’s been nearly a year since I published this recipe, and I’m extremely grateful for all the support I’ve continually received. I look forward to learning a whole lot more in the years to come. Thank you to all my supporters and anyone reading this. I appreciate it.
A few weeks ago, I came back from visiting my sister in New York City. I used to visit quite often and, every time, I would take the train up to 57 Street Station or 5th Ave Station and walk a mile—west and then north, along Central Park—to pay a visit to Levain Bakery in the upper west side on 74th Street.
It hasn’t been that long since I was introduced to Levain Bakery’s simple and decadent cookies. I was still in college, almost 8 years ago, when I visited my siblings on the east coast for the first time and spent an entire month exploring and discovering the unique beauty that is New York City.
That is when I learned the backstory of how these giant ooey gooey cookies were baked into creation. Over 20 years ago, the founders/owners of Levain Bakery (Pam and Connie) were training for an Iron Man Triathlon together and they were insatiably hungry all the time. Regular cookies weren't cutting it, so they made the famous 6-ounce cookies we now know and love, and the rest is history.
That summer when I visited NYC, I found and watched a YouTube video from Levain Bakery that showed (generally) how they make their cookies. I have made my own rendition of Levain’s famous chocolate chip walnut cookies a couple of times since then, and I’m excited to share with you my go-to recipe for when I’m really missing New York City.
Butter, sugar, eggs, flour, love…you know the drill.
UPDATE (Nov. 2023): Ingredients and baking instructions have been adjusted since this video was published. Please double check to compare to what you may have originally saved/copied. Enjoy!
Ingredients (6 cookies)
½ cup (112g) butter, slightly softened
1 cup (200g) light brown sugar
¼ (50g) cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, cold
1 tsp vanilla extract (imitation works just fine)
2½ (300g) cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt (or 1 tsp kosher salt)
2 cups (250g) walnuts, roughly chopped
(if omitting walnuts, you can add roughly 50g extra AP flour)2 cups (325g) dark chocolate chips (I enjoy Guittard’s Extra Dark or anything 65% and higher)
Recipe
Preheat your oven to 375ºF. If you’re going to bake all 8 cookies now, line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. If you’re going to only bake 4, line one. If you only have one pan but want to bake all 8, line-bake-and-reuse-it.
Beat the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until creamy smooth (about 3 minutes).
Add the first egg and beat on low-medium speed until fully incorporated. Repeat with the second egg. Then the vanilla extract.
Mix together the sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Carefully pour it all into the mixing bowl. Pulse the mixer/beater a few times to prevent flour from exploding in your face.
Mix in the walnuts and chocolate chips.
Now this next step should not be neat. Form and place eight (or four if you want to refrigerate half the dough for later) 6-ounce rough/messy balls of cookie dough into your lined baking sheet. I weighed them so that I would actually yield 8 cookies. Depending on the chocolate chips and walnuts, yours might not come out to 6 ounces each, but that’s the general goal/guideline. Also, if the edges of the cookie dough ball are rough/not smooth, that’s better. In my video, I formed them kind of neatly. In my experience, if you like craggly crispy tops, it’s best if you barely mush it together and smack it onto the pan.
At this point, if your dough seems like it has softened due to your kitchen's temperature or too much handling with hands, refrigerate the dough-balls for about half an hour before baking. When baking in winter, the dough tends to be pretty stiff and solid and doesn’t require chilling.
Pop the pan(s) into the oven for 12-16 minutes. This time variation depends on your oven (I’m using conventional top and bottom heat, not convection) as well as whether or not you chilled your dough (and for how long). I recommend checking (look, don’t touch) the cookies every minute after hitting the 11 minute mark. Ideally, you want patches of deep golden brown and lighter golden brown.
No matter what, you need to let these cookies set! Similar to steak, you’ve gotta take the cookies out while they’re technically a bit undercooked, and let them finish cooking in the still-hot pan in order to achieve the cooked-but-gooey center. The amount of walnuts/chocolate chips will make it hard to really check the inside without just breaking a cookie in half.
If you need to reuse your baking sheet for the second batch of 4-cookies, you can do so. Just make sure the pan is clean of grease and has cooled down before you place the dough-balls on it.
Notes
FREEZING DOUGH: If you’d like to freeze the dough for later use, go right ahead! To be completely honest, I don’t know how long the dough stays good in the freezer (at least a month for sure from my own experience). Wrap the dough balls individually in plastic wrap and freeze them. You can thaw them for about 20-30 minutes prior to placing on a parchment lined sheet and baking them.
SMALLER COOKIES: The only alternative size I’ve tried for these cookies is 3oz (half of my original). I would bake them at 375ºF for 10-12 minutes. Again, the time will depend on the oven. When baking a single chilled dough ball in my toaster oven, 375ºF for 11 minutes is perfect. Any more time and the center is overbaked.
Enjoy!
When the cookie is too big to dunk in milk…
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Large Baking Sheet (these cookies are 4-5in wide!)
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