Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies (Better Than The Original!)

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After 3 years of testing (and several defeats), I have finally perfected my Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie recipe! And calling it a “levain copycat” feels like a disservice – because while these cookies are inspired by Levain, they are so much better. They’re everything you want from a New York style cookie: thick and chunky with crispy craggy edges, gooey and fudgy centers and loaded with chocolate and walnuts. But unlike their inspiration, they are well balanced in flavor: not too sweet, generous on the chocolate, and with the perfect hit of salt. They are also surprisingly simple to make (no need for cake flour)!

I started with Levain’s ingredient label

I’ve been working on these Levain copycat (or “New York style”) cookies for a long time, and have tried many recipes that claim to be a dupe. However, nothing felt right. I even had the cookies shipped to me all the way from New York several times to taste and compare.

But then I had a genius idea: using the ingredient label! You see, Levain used to sell their cookies in grocery stores once upon a time. And that meant they had to list their ingredients on the packaging, in descending order by weight. And the label said:

• Flour
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Butter
• Sugar
• Light brown sugar
• Walnuts
• Eggs
• Salt
• Baking powder (NO baking soda!!)

So I just reverse engineered the recipe from this list! It still took a handful of trials (and some science and math) to get things exactly right  – but let me tell you, they are PERFECT.

Yes, they’re BETTER than Levain!

Although I set out to develop a perfect copycat recipe, I compared my cookies with Levain’s cookies side by side and the results were astonishing. They look the exact same and have the exact same craggy, crispy edges. But I liked the texture and flavor of my version even more than the original! Here’s what’s better about mine:

• Not as sweet. I reduced the sugar just enough for the cookies to not be overly sweet, while still maintaining the desired texture. My cookies tasted like cookies, while Levain’s tasted more like sweet fudge
• A bit more salty. Again, I need a balanced flavor!
• Better chocolate. In my recipe, I recommend using chopped semi-sweet chocolate anywhere between 50-60% cocoa (which isn’t too dark!). Levain uses sweeter chocolate chips, which don’t melt as well and taste sweeter. My top recommendation for chocolate, if you can get it, is Ghirardelli’s dark chocolate wafers!
• Better texture. Levain’s cookies feel a bit too dense and fudgy in the middle, likely due to the higher sugar content, while mine are more soft, moist and gooey!

Step by step photos

Zoha’s Top Tip

Wanna make Levain’s Two Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies instead? If you’re more of a chocolate person and/or don’t love walnuts – just replace the walnuts with 150g of milk chocolate instead. You could even add some homemade toffee bits instead, like I do in my butterscotch toffee chocolate chip cookies!

A few tricks to make these cookies work

In addition to the correct ingredient ratios (which I have already perfected for you), there are a few tricks you need to make the perfect levain style chocolate chip walnut cookies:

1. Use cold butter. This works similarly to pie dough – using cold butter means some of the butter remains unmixed, in tiny lumps, which then creates a crispy texture in the cookies
2. Mix very little. We want the dough to remain quite rough – again, like pie dough! At each stage, we mix only until the ingredients come together
3. Shape loosely. You want to pull together the chunks of dough into cookie balls very roughly until they just stick together and have some height. Rough cookie dough balls = crispier cookies as there is more surface area for the heat to enter from!
4. Chill overnight. I know many levain copycat recipes skip the chilling but it is CRUCIAL. Commercially produced cookies are actually frozen solid before baking. The longer chill time is essential as it results in cookies that spread less and are more moist and fudgy inside. If you’re very hungry, bake one cookie after 2 hours of chilling (at least that much is needed!) but keep the rest in the fridge. You can also make my no-chill chocolate chip cookies if you need a cookie fix while waiting!
5. Bake in a light colored sheet. I say this for almost all my cookie recipes, but using a light colored sheet will ensure your cookies do not over-brown on the bottom
6. Slightly underbake. These cookies are done baking when they’re golden and crispy around the edges. At this point, they do still feel quite soft and slightly under-done in the middle. But remove from the oven and let them rest on the baking sheet for 15-20 minutes, and they will end up with the perfect gooey texture inside! I highly recommend baking 1 test cookie first so you know exactly how long to bake

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