You might be looking at that photo and thinking to yourself, “Amber, that’s just another chocolate chip walnut cookie. Yum, but, come on! It’s been done!”. Well, my friend, you’d be right, except that that right there is a Levain Bakery chocolate chip walnut cookie, that I made at home.
The Levain Bakery is famous in this area, and honestly, beyond. It’s been the subject of New York Times articles, Food Network Shows, and many a food blogger discussion.
These cookies, they’re special. They’ve got weight. They’ve got this outer.. shell, for lack of a better word. When you bite into the cookie, the outer layer has a crunch to it, a bite. But it’s ever so slight, and gives way immediately to a texture somewhere between cake and chewy that I thought I’d never be able to duplicate.
Then, I was doing some research on flour for a friend (and myself), and came across the existence of Pastry flour. I’d never before heard of it. Apparently, because it’s really only available commercially. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my noggin. Of course! No one’s been able to recreate the Levain cookies because we’re not using the right kind of flour. More importantly, we’re not using the right kind of flour mixture. Luckily, I found a pretty easy formula to recreate pastry flour, and was on my way.
I’m excited to say that both The Brit and I agree these are spot on to the Levain Bakery Chocolate Walnut Cookies. It’s got that crisp exterior and toothy interior. The walnuts and chocolate sing together. James loved the cookies so much he invented a new word: Deluscious. Hah!
Have you been to Levain Bakery or ordered their cookies before? I’m excited to hear if you think this recipe is as close as I do.
For the next few days I’ll be in California learning all about Walnuts, so I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my favorite walnut recipes with you. I hope you enjoy these perfectly chocolatey and walnut-y Levain Bakery knock-offs.
Levain Chocolate Walnut Cookies
adapted from Lisa Michele’s copycat recipe
2 sticks or 1 cup chilled Butter (I used Kerry Gold Irish Butter)
1/2 cup White Granulated Sugar
1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
2 large cold Eggs
2 c. All Purpose Flour
1 c. Cake Flour
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tbsp. Corn Starch
1 c. 60% Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
1 c. Milk Chocolate Chips
1 c. toasted chopped Walnuts
In a medium sized bowl combine flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and corn starch. Whisk for a solid 1-2 minutes until all dry ingredients are well mixed and there are no lumps in the flour mixture.
Cube 1 cup (2 sticks) of chilled butter into 1″ pieces. Put white and brown sugar in a stand mixer bowl or large mixing bowl and mix until well combined and almost all lumps have disappeared. Add cold cubed butter and continue to mix at medium speed. Add eggs, one at a time, continuing mixing until well incorporated.
Add flour mixture to sugar/egg mixture in increments until fully incorporated. Remove from stand mixer and mix in chocolate chips and walnuts by hand.
Refridgerate cookie dough overnight.
Preheat oven to 375F.
Using a large spoon or ice cream scoop, distribute dough onto baking trays lined with parchment paper. For trays with 6 dough balls, bake about 14-15 minutes, 12 minutes for trays with less dough balls. As is the Levain style, the cookies should be removed from the oven when they look slightly underdone. They will continue to cook as they cool.
Makes approximately 20 cookies.
[wpurp-searchable-recipe]Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies – – – [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]
Homeschooling Mom
Wednesday 10th of April 2013
Made the dough yesterday and it took everything in our power not to eat the dough unbaked! We let it hang out in the fridge overnight and in the meantime my 12-year-old analyzed the ingredients and figured out price-per-cookie. The only difference from your recipe was that we added a tsp of vanilla paste. We used expensive ingredients - Luprak butter, organic eggs, Scharffen Berger semi sweet chunks, Ghiradelli milk chic chips -- still our cookies were less than half the price of Levain's. $1.88/cookie for our cookies, and yes - we did take into account the massive size of Levain's. my kid got a kick out of that!
We baked a dozen first thing this morning and enjoyed them very much. These were good cookies, thank you for the recipe! These were not our favorite, though. This one ranked below our favorites: the Torres NY Times "48-hour" cookie, Alton Brown's "the Chewy", and CI's brown butter chic-chippers.
Still, we enjoyed the experience. Thanks again for the recipe!
[email protected]
Thursday 26th of July 2012
Amber, thanks for cracking the code! I made and posted these OUTRAGEOUS chocolate chip cookies on my blog recently and I am still floating on a chocolate chip cookie high! Love your blog--when you have time, stop by and visit mine! http://www.fransfavs.com/2012/07/levain-bakery-chocolate-chip-walnut-cookie-clone/
Amber
Friday 27th of July 2012
Fran, thanks so much for the link love! I do love these cookies so much, though I recently had a discussion with a friend that has me ready to tweak the recipe even further. If either of us do, I'll be sure to post about it!
Pam
Friday 22nd of June 2012
I made these cookies this morning and they were delicious!! I also used regular butter, and I used all semi-sweet chocolate chips. The texture and height of the cookies were just wonderful - no flat cookies here!! As of this afternoon, they were still moist and soft inside and did not turn into hockey pucks - I undercooked them slightly as directed. Next time I may use a heaping half cup of white sugar instead of a level cup, as they weren't quite sweet enough for me, though changing to all milk chocolate chips might also do the trick. I like things REALLY sweet! Thank you so much for this fantastic recipe!!!
Kerry F
Friday 23rd of March 2012
I made these cookies a few weeks ago and wanted to let you know my husband and I have decided they are the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made. I used regular butter instead of the Kerrygold (even though it's hard to resist buying something with your name on it!) and I used Hershey special dark chips and pecans. Yum yum yum. They are going to be my go-to recipe. Thanks so much for posting!
Amber
Saturday 24th of March 2012
Kerry, I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming back to tell me. Nothing makes a food blogger's day like a return comment telling them how much a recipe is enjoyed.
You really did make my day.
Angela @ The Dancer Bakes
Friday 15th of July 2011
I just discovered Levain Bakery over Memorial Day weekend and I now crave their cookies regularly. If I can make them at home I will be the happiest woman alive. Thank you for this!