Lockdown Diaries: My Quest for the Perfect Cookie Recipe

Once upon a time, before ‘coronavirus’ or ‘Covid-19’ entered my vocabulary, or people signed off emails ‘stay safe’ (as if I’ve spent my whole life previously living dangerously), I visited New York and tasted a Levain Bakery cookie. Few cookies, if any, have matched that one – Phenomenon Cookies in Miami came close, the recently opened Crème in London certainly gave a decent inning, but I’ve yet to find anything that matched it. And so, I’ve spent the past few years attempting to perfect my own cookie recipe; leading to a graveyard of flat cookies, too-sweet cookies, biscuit-like cookies and basically raw-in-the-middle cookies. 

My main gripe is with my cookies spreading. What is the secret? Someone enlighten me. I’ve chilled my cookie dough. I’ve tried cornflour, bread flour, cake flour. I’ve tried lots of flour or less flour. I’ve tried a combination of baking powder and baking soda. I’ve tried one and not the other. I’ve tried one egg, two eggs, one egg and a yolk. I’ve tried butter and not shortening or shortening and not butter. I’ve tried half brown sugar, half granulated or mostly white sugar with some brown. You name it, I’ve done it.

You can imagine my surprise when, just as I had almost given up hope of cracking this nugget, I attempted another batch with none of the fancy tweaks or trimmings, and low and behold: they are almost perfect. So, I’d like to share with you my almost perfect cookies. Levain’s most infamous cookie is their chocolate chip walnut, so that is what I made (of course).

My parting piece of wisdom is this: do not change anything and follow the recipe exactly, down to the letter. I know what it’s like to tweak or fiddle with recipes, I’m a serial offender in this department, but in this case – do what I say and not what I do. If you use a milk or white chocolate I would reduce the butter a little due to the higher fat content in milk or white chocolate.

DARK CHOCOLATE CHUNK & WALNUT COOKIE RECIPE

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugars until fluffy. Really cream them. Like a lot. Go to town with the creaming. (I use a food processor as I don’t have an electric mixer precisely, but an electric whisk would work nicely. Whisking or mixing by hand is fine too but be prepared for a serious arm and shoulder workout).
2. Add in the eggs and vanilla extract and cream again. ALL the creaming, trust me.
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl; the flour, salt and baking powder. Add the dry mix into the wet and combine thoroughly. Be careful not to overmix.
4. Lastly add in the chocolate and walnuts. Make sure to do this by hand and again be sure not to overmix.
5. Divide into 8-10 large cookie balls (yes, they are monster cookies, that is the intention friends).
6. Place on cool baking tray lined with parchment (not foil) and chill dough balls for a minimum of 30 mins in the freezer but preferably for 4-6 hours in the fridge (or even overnight if possible).
7. When ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 190?C (180?C for fan-assisted) and cook for 20 mins (this is on the basis on the dough having been divided into 8 balls only).
8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for another 15 minutes’ minimum. This is an essential step as the cookies will continue to cook during this time (so don’t worry if they are still very soft when they first come out of the oven).
9. Try not to consume the whole batch.

If portion control is important you (personally, it’s lost all meaning to me since lockdown) then I’d advise portioning into balls, wrapping each in cling film and freezing. Then defrost and cook as you please.