Levain Bakery Inspired Chocolate Cookies
These Levain Bakery inspired chocolate cookiescan be described as a delicious hybrid between a chewy cookie and soft brownie.
One of my favorite desserts is a good cookie. Cookies are relatively easy to make and you can conveniently freeze some dough to bake them fresh on a whim. I’m not a huge fan of the thinner, chewy cookies. Instead, I prefer a soft and cakey texture. I always liked Levain Bakery‘s famous cookies and so decided to create my own version of their rich, soft and chewy cookies. There are a number of recipes online that attempt to recreate Levain Bakery’s cookies, and I have tried a few. I found the one by Modern Honey to be most comparable and delightful, and adapted their chocolate chip cookie recipe to make my own double chocolate cookie recipe.
Levain Bakery cookies are loaded with chocolate chips. I prefer a less rich taste and use a quarter amount of chocolate chips that are used in most Levain Bakery “inspired” cookie recipes. I also like to add some instant coffee by Mount Hagen to enhance and intensify the chocolate flavor.
The pistachios are optional, but I like to add them for texture and for its nutty flavor. You can also substitute this with other seeds or nuts, such as walnuts or pecans. For cocoa powder, I like to use alkalized or Dutch cocoa powder, which is darker and has a smoother and earthier taste than nonalkalized or natural cocoa powder. I used the one made by Guittard.
Freezing the Cookie Dough
If you want freshly baked cookies on a whim, you could always freeze some cookie dough ahead of time. You can save the cookie dough in the freezer for up to 3 months. These cookies stay pretty moist and delicious for a few days, but nothing beats warm cookies fresh from the oven!
MISE EN PLACE
If you make these Levain Bakery Inspired Chocolate Cookies I would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to leave a comment and/or recipe rating at the bottom of this page. And if you have a photo of your food, be sure to tag me on Instagram!
Levain Bakery Inspired Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients
Wet ingredients
- 1 cup cold butter, cubed
- 115 g cane sugar
- 164 g brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp hot water
- 1 tsp instant coffee
Dry ingredients
- 5 g baking soda (¾ tsp)
- 3 g cornstarch (1 tsp)
- 200 g cake flour
- 156 g all purpose flour
- 52 g dutch process cocoa powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- ¼ cup pistachios, shelled
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 410°F.
- Mix the instant coffee in the hot water and set aside to cool.
- Mix the butter, cane sugar, and brown sugar at medium speed for about 7 minutes or until light and fluffy.
- While the butter and sugar are mixing, whisk together the dry ingredients (baking soda, cornstarch, cake flour, all purpose flour, cocoa powder, salt) in a separate large bowl.
- After the butter and sugar have mixed for about 7 minutes, add the coffee mixture and the eggs, one by one, on low speed and only mix until well incorporated to avoid over beating the eggs.
- Add the dry mixture and mix on low speed just until the ingredients are well incorporated.
- Add the chocolate chips and pistachios and pulse the mixture a couple times.
- Get a baking pan ready with some parchment paper and make about 2 tbsp scoops of cookie dough. (You can freeze the cookie dough at this point.)
- Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the baking tray halfway through. If frozen, bake the cookie dough for 12 minutes.