Levain Bakery Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is so special about levain cookies? ›

The Cookie That Melts In Your Mouth And Warms Your Heart

Baked in NYC and beloved worldwide, our crispy and chewy and soft and melty cookies have become iconic for a reason. We make each 6-ounce cookie by hand every day, with simple ingredients and a whole lotta love — the same way we've done since 1995.

If it feels set and springs back slightly, it is likely done. Avoid pressing too hard, as this can deflate the cookie. Light Cracking – Look for light cracks on the surface of the cookies. If you see them, the cookies have been baked long enough and are ready to be taken out of the oven.

Cover the baking tray with clingfilm and freeze the cookie dough balls for at least 90 minutes or up to 48 hours for best results. The longer you leave them, the thicker your cookies will be.

We've chosen to press pause on our frozen, smaller sized 2 oz. cookies at this time. In this post-pandemic, inflationary environment, it's no longer feasible for us to bring the same Levain recipe to grocery stores at a price point that conveys the right value.

Chocolate chip cookies

What is the most popular type of cookie? It might just be this one. Ever the crowd-pleaser, the chocolate chip cookie is renowned for its balance of richness and sweetness.

Levain Bakery-style cookies are intentionally crafted to have a soft and gooey interior. The texture might resemble a slightly undercooked cookie, but it's a result of the baking technique used to achieve that irresistibly melty center while maintaining a crispy exterior.

Colour: Raw or undercooked cookies tend to have a pale appearance, lacking that golden or slightly browned hue that indicates they're fully baked.

Which oven rack position should you use when baking cookies? Cookies should be baked on the center oven rack for even heating and air circulation. As a best practice, is it recommended to rotate the cookie sheet or sheets roughly halfway, or shortly thereafter, through the baking time, if needed.

If the dough is shiny as it bakes (thanks to the butter or other fat in it), that shine will significantly reduce or go away once the cookies are set. As soon as they reach that stage, remove them from the oven. Even if they don't feel firm yet, they'll continue to set and harden as they cool.

Try using baking powder instead of baking soda. Baking soda encourages spreading while baking powder puffs the cookies up. If your recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of baking soda, you would use 3 to 4 teaspoons of baking powder. Caution: This could result in an unwanted flavor shift.

What does refrigerating cookie dough do? ›

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.

Levain Bakery has achieved cult-status fame for what they call “New York's most famous cookie.” Their oversized cookies are almost scone-like with irresistibly craggy edges and underbaked centers.

If you're not going to eat your cookies within a few days of purchase, they can be frozen and reheated before you want to enjoy (350 degrees F for a couple of minutes or until heated through). We do NOT recommend refrigerating or microwaving the cookies. We hope that helps.

Levain has gradually expanded its offerings, but to this day, it sticks to a few key cookie flavors: Chocolate Chip Walnut, Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip, Caramel Coconut Chocolate Chip (a limited-edition treat) and Oatmeal Raisin, as well as a gluten-free and vegan take on the ...

A levain, also called a leaven or levain starter, is an off-shoot of your sourdough starter, and it's a mixture of fresh flour, water, and some ripe starter. This mixture will be used entirely in a batch of dough and has the same fate as the bread dough you're mixing: you will bake it in the oven.

Levain, or levain starter, is a leavening agent made from a mixture of flour and water and used to bake bread. The flour and water mixture takes on the wild yeasts in the air, and ferments. (You can also add commercial yeast to create a “prefermented” levain.

Our cookies stay fresh for about a week at room temperature when wrapped in an air-tight container. If you're not going to eat your cookies within a few days of purchase, they can be frozen and reheated before you want to enjoy (350 degrees F for a couple of minutes or until heated through).

A levain is generally used to increase or scale up your sourdough starter, so it's larger in size. But despite its size, it's used for one bake as opposed to a sourdough starter which continutes indefinitely with regular feeding.