SacFoodies

Since I’ve been home a lot more than usual and not going out to my favorite restaurants and bakeries, I’ve been cooking and baking much more often. I’ve also been watching new YouTube videos to try and fine tune some of my culinary skills. This last weekend, I made the dreamiest, chewiest, chunkiest chocolate chip cookies. These aren’t your average chocolate chip cookies.

Listen – these are BIG, soft, chunky, and oh so yummy. I followed the recipe from two of my new YouTube friends, Joshua Weissman and Babbish. They attempted to recreate the world-famous New York Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies. I opted to remove the nuts from my recreation, but I included them in the ingredients for those who prefer nuts in their cookies.

If you want to watch Josh Weissman’s video while you bake, it’s linked here. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups cake flour 
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 tsp kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons corn starch
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1.25 cups unsalted butter
• 1.25 cups light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 cups walnuts (optional)
• 2 4oz chocolate baking bars, semi-sweet
• 2 4oz chocolate baking bars, 60% cacao or darker 

Note: Some helpful kitchen tools include a stand mixer and a kitchen scale but are not needed.

Directions:

Melt your butter. You can do this over the stove top or in the microwave. If you’re using the microwave, melt the butter in 15-second increments to ensure it does not burn. When it is completely melted, set to the side and let cool.

While butter is cooling, roughly chop your cholate bars. You should have a variety of sizes, some big, some small. 

In a medium size bowl, combine the cake flour, all-purpose flour, kosher salt, corn starch, and baking soda. Whisk together.

If you’re using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment to whisk together your light brown sugar and white granulated sugar on medium speed. As that is mixing, slowly stream in your butter and whisk until it is all nice and creamy.

Once your butter and sugar mixture is smooth, one at a time add two eggs followed by three egg yolks.

Once the eggs have been completely mixed in, switch to the peddle attachment (if using a stand mixer, otherwise mix with a wooden spoon), begin to add in your flour mixture. I found it best to slowly add in the flour rather than adding it all at once.

After the dough is mixed and smooth, add in the chocolate and nuts (if desired) and mix.

Once all the ingredients have been mixed in, chill the dough in the fridge for at least 45 minutes.

Now that your dough is chilly, you need to form tall, large balls of dough. Levain’s website says that their cookies are roughly 6-oz, so using a food scale, scoop our 6-oz balls of dough and form them into a tall ball. If they’re not tall, they’ll come out flat.

Next, line your baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange your balls of dough. Place no more than 6 balls on one sheet to prevent them from spreading out into each other. To get tall cookies, refrigerate your formed dough for another 25 minutes, however, you don’t NEED to do this step.

Once you’ve chilled your dough again (or not), place them in your oven set to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-13 minutes or until lightly browned on the outside. (I personally like my cookies medium rare, so I take them out at 10 minutes and let them almost completely cool to solidify any gooey dough, but you can adjust the bake time based on your preference). Carefully slide the parchment paper off the baking sheet and lay cookies on a cooling rack. You’re going to want to reline your baking sheet with parchment paper each time you put more cookies in the oven. If you’re re-using the same baking sheet for multiple batches of cookies, be sure the sheet is fully cooled before placing a new batch of dough.

Once your cookies have cooled, grab a cup of milk and enjoy! Be sure to check out Binging with Babbish and Joshua Weissman for more recipe inspiration!