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At a glance
- What it is: My reverse-engineered version of New York City’s iconic Levain Bakery dark chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe
- What makes it special: Just like the original, these rich, dark cookies are 6 ounces each, crisp outside and gooey inside, super-thick and packed with chocolate chips
- How to make it: Sift together the dry ingredients, beat the cold butter and sugar just until crumbly, add the eggs, mix in the dry ingredients, fold in the chips, chill, and bake
Why you’ll love this recipe
You’re probably here because you already love Levain Bakery’s giant, crisp on the outside, tender and gooey on the inside dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies.
I am just the right age to have been living my best young-adult life in New York City when Levain Bakery first became a sensation, so it only made sense for me to devote lots of love and care (and professional recipe development skill!) to helping you replicate their magic at home.
According to many of you who have made my chocolate chip walnut cookie dupe, they’re even better than the original. (Personally, I think baking at home is almost always better.)
Hope you’ll love these as much as I do.
Video: Levain Bakery dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies
What you’ll need
Here’s a peek at the ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe.
- Cake flour has a lower protein content than all-purpose flour and contributes to a tender, almost cakelike center in these cookies. Find it in many grocery stores or grab it online. Note: At least in the grocery version of their cookies, Levain does not list cake flour in the ingredients. Instead they use the kind of all-purpose flour that contains diastatic malted barley, a dough conditioner that contributes to tenderness. Using some cake flour at home is the easiest way to replicate the tenderness of the original. Note to readers in the U.K. and Commonwealth countries: Cake flour is not self-raising. If you can’t find it, a you can substitute more all-purpose/plain flour instead. Your plain flour typically has a lower protein content than our all-purpose flour anyway.
- Dutch-process cocoa powder is processed with alkali. The higher pH makes it react differently in chemically leavened batters (such as this one, which uses baking powder) than regular cocoa powder, so don’t swap one for the other. I particularly love King Arthur Double Dark Cocoa Powder blend for these cookies. You can use any Dutch-processed cocoa, but the darker and richer, the better.
- Here and virtually everywhere, I start with a cultured butter from grass-fed cows. This sounds fancy but doesn’t have to be. Kerrygold, for example, is sold in most supermarkets at a reasonable price.
- I typically prefer bittersweet chocolate, but here I really recommend semisweet chocolate chips, just like Levain Bakery uses. They’re sweeter and add nice little pops of contrast to the cookie dough itself.
How to make it
Here’s an overview of what you’ll do to make a great batch of Levain Bakery dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies.
- Sift together the dry ingredients.
- Starting with cold butter is one of the keys to these cookies. Mix the butter and the sugars together just until it looks like a crumble topping you’d use for a fruit crisp. This is when you’ll add the eggs. Mix in the eggs just until they’re incorporated and the dough is relatively smooth.
- Add the sifted dry ingredients all at once and mix until everything is just shy of combined. I like to quit while I’m ahead and do the last bit of mixing by hand with a wooden spoon or a sturdy silicone spatula. Mix in the chocolate chips. The dough will be very stiff at this stage.
- To form each cookie, gather six ounces of dough into a rough ball without packing it together. It’s good to weigh them if you have a kitchen scale. If you’ve weighed your ingredients, you should get exactly nine cookies. Let them chill in the fridge for at least an hour and then bake them four or five at a time on a parchment-lined baking sheet. The recipe card below has all the baking details.
Expert tips and FAQs
These cookies use a few special ingredients and techniques. Learn more about them here.
Cake flour is made from “soft” wheat with a low protein content — usually 7 to 9 percent (vs. the 10 to 12 that you’ll find in all-purpose flour). It’s also more finely milled than all-purpose flour. Using some cake flour in these cookies helps them retain the light tenderness you expect to find inside.
You will find claims on the internet about how to make a substitute for cake flour using all-purpose flour and cornstarch. I have tried this in cake recipes and not found it to be the least bit convincing. Instead, if you can’t find cake flour locally, buy it here.
This is an unusual technique for cookie mixing, but it works. Levain Bakery dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies have an almost sconelike shape and exterior texture, so I’ve borrowed this trick from scone making 101. Starting with cold butter means that it doesn’t get fully incorporated into the mixture, but rather breaks into tiny pieces. When they hit the heat of a high oven, they release tiny pockets of steam inside the cookie while helping the outside to crisp.
Levain Bakery makes enormous batches of cookie dough, shapes the cookies, and lets them rest in the fridge. Perhaps this started as a logistical necessity, but it contributes a lot to the character of these cookies.
First and foremost, chilling prevents spread. By solidifying the butter, it produces cookies that retain their shape while baking.
Next, these cookies are baked at a very high temperature in the cookie world (375°F / 190°C), for a long time (16 minutes). Chilling the dough balls on the baking sheet also chills the baking sheet, and this prevents the bottoms of the cookies from overbaking. They end up just right on the bottom.
Finally, even a tiny bit of “aging” contributes to a crisper, better browned exterior and a more developed flavor.
It sure is. But it’s the right temperature to achieve the mix of perfectly set exterior and gooey interior that you expect from Levain Bakery cookies. I actually tested as high as 400°F, but 375°F produces the best version of the best cookies.
More iconic cookie recipes
- Levain Bakery chocolate chip walnut cookies
- Neiman Marcus cookies
- Quaker oatmeal raisin cookies
- Chewy snickerdoodles
Summarize & Save This Content On
Levain Bakery Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup cake flour
- ½ cup very dark Dutch-processed cocoa powder, I use King Arthur double dark cocoa powder blend
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 16 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Sift together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter with the sugar just until it has the texture of a crumble topping. Refer to the step-by-step photos and the video for visual cues.
- Mix in the eggs just until they're combined and the dough begins to look smooth.
- Add the dry ingredients all at once. Mix on low just until they're incorporated. I like to do the last bit of mixing by hand with a wooden spoon or very sturdy silicone spatula, to be sure there’s no unmixed dough on the bottom, without overmixing the rest. Dough will be very stiff at this stage.
- Mix in the chocolate chips to distribute evenly. I like to do this part by hand as well, but you can use the paddle on a stand mixer if you like. It will take a bit of elbow grease either way.
- Divide the dough into nine 6-ounce (170-gram) balls. Use your hands to shape them very lightly. The final result should be rough and rustic, not packed and spherical. Line two sturdy baking sheets with parchment and arrange four balls on one sheet, five on the other, leaving plenty of room in between.
- Place the cookie sheets into the fridge for at least one hour, more if possible. It's important to chill the sheets as well as the dough balls. Do not skip this step — it helps ensure the cookies won't spread too much while baking.
- Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C) with a rack in the center.
- Transfer one cookie sheet from the fridge to the center oven rack. (You'll bake the sheets one at a time.) Bake until cookies are fully set on top and underneath and still very soft inside, about 16 minutes.
- Let cool for at least 15 to 30 minutes before serving, right on the pan — longer if you can. This helps the cookies set perfectly.
Notes
- I highly recommend using a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients. If you’re measuring by volume, be sure to employ the spoon and level method for the flour, otherwise you’ll end up using too much.
- Cake flour has a lower protein content than all-purpose flour and contributes to a tender, almost cakelike center in these cookies. Find it in many grocery stores or grab it online. Note: At least in the grocery version of their cookies, Levain does not list cake flour in the ingredients. Instead they use the kind of all-purpose flour that contains diastatic malted barley, a dough conditioner that contributes to tenderness. Using some cake flour at home is the easiest way to replicate the tenderness of the original. Note to readers in the U.K. and Commonwealth countries: Cake flour is not self-raising. If you can’t find it, a you can substitute more all-purpose/plain flour instead. Your plain flour typically has a lower protein content than our all-purpose flour anyway.
- You must use Dutch-processed cocoa (not “natural” cocoa) for this recipe. These types of cocoa are not interchangeable in recipes that use chemical leavening (such as the baking powder in this recipe). The darker and richer the cocoa, the more delicious your cookies will be. I love King Arthur double dark cocoa powder blend.
- If your fridge can’t accommodate cookie sheets, don’t panic. You could chill them separately in the freezer for a few minutes. Or, if that’s not possible, you can invert a second rimmed cookie sheet underneath the one you’re using to bake, to create a bit of distance between the main baking sheet and the hot oven rack. The parchment also helps buffer the cookies from the direct heat.
- In my oven, these cookies take 16 minutes to bake. As always, your mileage may vary. You’re looking for a fully-set exterior and an interior that looks visibly soft from above but not totally raw. It’s best to err on the side of underbaking as you get a sense for how your own oven handles these cookies. You can always tack on a few additional minutes next time.
- Once cool, store leftovers tightly sealed at room temperature for up to three days. // OR freeze baked cookies and rewarm in a 350°F oven. // OR freeze raw cookie dough balls. Thaw in refrigerator before baking.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
