Levain Bakery Copycat Dark Chocolate Peanut butter Chip Cookies (Todd's Favorite)

Ingredients

* 2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
* 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
* 2 eggs
* ***1/4 to 1/2 cup good quality dark cocoa powder
* 2 1/4 to 1/2 cups all-purpose flour- Spoon and Sweep method
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
* 2 cups peanut butter chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugar until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well-incorporated, then beat in cocoa powder.

2. Mix in flour, salt and baking powder until just combined. Gently fold in remaining ingredients.

3. Transfer dough to clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients. Divide into 12 equal portions, **about 4 oz each, and place each on sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Bake in the preheated oven 18 minutes depending on how gooey and raw’ish you like the middle, taking care not to overbake. Let cool on a rack and store what you don’t immediately eat, in an airtight container. To freshen them after a few days (if they last that long), give them a quick nuke in the microwave for 5-10 seconds.

** Note - The Levain Bakery uses 6 oz of cookie dough per cookie. As mentioned above, If you want 12 cookies out of the above recipes, a little over 4 oz per cookie (4.1 to 4.2 oz. Use a kitchen scale) will get you that. If you want to use 6 oz of cookie dough per cookie, you’ll probably get only 6-8 cookies. However, a little over 4 oz makes a cookie just as thick and huge, so you don’t even notice the difference.

*** Note - Regarding the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies. If you don't use Dutch-process cocoa you can use basic, natural unsweetened cocoa (like Hershey’s in the brown can), add 1/4 heaping tsp baking soda when using regular baking cocoa) to the dry ingredients.

Levain Bakery Copycat Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

Yields 1 dozen huge cookies just like the bakery in NYC who won the best cookie award.

Ingredients

• 2 sticks ‘cold and cubed’ unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar - not packed too hard. Just spoon it in the cup(s) and press down lightly when full, sweeping off any extra that runs over.
• 2 eggs
• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour - Spoon and Sweep method. (this means no pre-sifting and leveling off the top of your measuring cup with a knife. Feel the dough, it should be moist, kind of like cold cookie dough in a tube.. but not super sticky, so you can portion the cookies with your hands.
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4-1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups good quality semisweet chocolate chips or chunks (I usually use half semisweet and half milk chocolate)
• 1 cup walnuts (Toast the nuts for more flavor, if desired and/or use any kind of nut you like like pecans or macadamias)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time.. and beat until well incorporated.

2. Add flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chunks and nuts.

3. Transfer dough to clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients. Divide into 12 equal portions, **about 4 oz each.. They are huge and heavy!

4. Place each on sheet pan lined with parchment paper and bake in the preheated oven 18 minutes depending on how gooey and raw’ish you like the middles, until very lightly browned, taking care not to overbake. Let cool on rack and store what you don’t immediately eat, in an airtight container. To freshen them after a few days (if they last that long), give them a quick nuke in the microwave for 5-10 seconds.

Note: there is no vanilla used in this receipe, to be authentic to the real thing.