Thursday, February 4, 2021

Levain-style Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Super Bowl is one of my favorite events – the food, the commercials, the entertainment, and oh yes, the football.  It’s a gluttony of dips, appetizers and desserts.  A few favorites you might want to include at your home: white bean dip with pita toasts; roasted red pepper hummus; Mexican layered dip; tuna tartare; sprinkle cookies.  

It was exciting news when Levain Bakery started selling their cookies at Central Market, that is until Caryn brought over some home baked, Levain-style cookies AND THEN shared the recipe.  These are giant cookies – I mean seriously, the size of your fist, but you won’t want to share.  The batch makes 8-10 cookies which is probably more fitting for the size of your Super Bowl “gathering” this year. 

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter cut into small cubes
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 ½ cups cake flour
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch
  • ¾ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon salt
  • 1 ½ - 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (2 c ~ 12 oz bag)

Preheat oven to 400. 

In a large bowl, cream together the cubed butter, brown sugar and sugar until creamy, about 4 minutes.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each.  Stir in the flours, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt..  Mix until just combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips (add in up to 2 cups of walnuts, if you choose – we chose no). 

Separate dough into 8-10 portions and place 4-5 cookies on a light colored cookie sheets lined with parchment paper; the cookies are big so separate across 2 cookie sheets.  We formed each cookie dough portion into something that looked similar to a hockey puck (Levain style is more free form and rustic.)  

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown on top (Levain style is less cooked and still a bit gooey on the inside so 12-15 minutes – that’s not our family’s preference so we bake for longer).  Allow the cookies to rest for at least 10 minutes to set. 

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