Levain Bakery in New York City is known for making the best chocolate chip walnut cookies. The cookies are served warm and fresh out of the oven. The 6 oz treats melt in your mouth, and cause lots of happy sighs and eye-rolling. I decided I was over waiting in line to get my hands on a cookie so I searched for a good copy-cat recipe, made some tweaks, and came up with a cookie that I personally like even better!

If you're going true-to-Levain style, one batch will only make about 8-12 cookies depending on how big you want them. If you're going for 6 oz full-sized cookies, the recipe will yield about 8. If you want them slightly smaller (3-4oz), it'll yield about 12. I made 4 oz cookies and they were perfect! I now prefer them over the full-sized 6 oz.

Pretty Dang Close Levain Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup room-temp butter

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 1/2-3/4 cups flour

2 tablespoons corn starch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

2 cups walnuts (halves, not diced)

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cream butter and sugars together. Add eggs and vanilla.

3. Stir in salt, baking powder and baking soda.

4. Stir in flour and corn starch in increments. Combine well, but don't over-mix!

5. Add in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

6. If you don't have a food scale (who does? not me, I'm not that fancy) roughly divide your dough into small fist-sized cookies.

7. If you're baking 4 oz cookies, bake for 7-9 min. You don't want to over cook them! Let them rest for about 20 min before eating! (If you're baking 6 oz cookies, bake for 10-12 min).

Tips:

-Refrigerate dough between batches! I find that the second batch of cookies spreads more than the first, but they really shouldn't spread that much.

-For a doughy/chewy cookie, do not over cook! Unless you like them less chewy.

-If you don't want to eat them all at once, you can freeze the dough balls! OR you can cook them and then freeze the cookies. I've done this, and when I thawed them, they were STILL CHEWY!

-If you don't like walnuts, just add more chocolate chips!

DIG IN!!! (and share :) )