NYC Chocolate Chip Cookies!
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Giant, gooey and utterly delicious NYC chocolate chip cookies based on the famous cookies from New York City!!
NYC chocolate chip cookies
Can we take a minute, right at the beginning of this blog post, to appreciate… that I have given you guys this recipe. I have finally given you all the recipe that you have been after, for such a long long time. QUEUE THE APPLAUSE.
I’m joking – seriously. But anyway… I will say the reason they took this long to come to my blog, is because I only, finally, went to New York four months ago, so I finally got to try some classic NYC cookies for myself!
I wasn’t prepared or willing to post an NYC chocolate chip cookies recipe before I had actually eaten some for myself! I feel like that is pushing the limit really… can you make a recipe for something as famous as this, if you haven’t even there and eaten them?!
Levain Bakery
Anyway. When I was in New York, I ate so. many. cookies. The best of all, for me personally, was the ones from Levain Bakery. Oh, holy geeeeeeee they were insanely epic. I heard lots and lots of talk about Levain Bakery on my social channels before I went, and my gosh they did not disappoint.
I managed to get in when there was absolutely no queue, and then trotted over to Central Park to enjoy them, and my gosh it was the best thing ever. Not only was I finally taking in the sites of Central Park, in actual New York City, but the cookies… wow.
When it comes to making a recipe for them though, I will say that these are not authentic Levain Bakery cookies, as I just don’t think they can be recreated. I really don’t. There are many great NYC chocolate chip cookies recipes out there – this recipe from Modern Honey is great, so is this one from Cupcake Jemma, or this one from Kirbie Cravings!
Recipe
I have honestly made about 20 batches of cookies now, to get these right. There are so many factors when it comes to making these cookies – and jeez it’s hard to get them all right. When researching into recipes, what Levain Bakery and other bakeries such as Creme in London and so on do.. it is a bit of a mix. What flavours actually go into them, what order you put the ingredients in, and so on! Lots of recipes use a mix of two flours, but I like to stick to just one!
I basically just wanted to create giant chocolate chip cookies, that resemble NYC chocolate chip cookies, that are easier to make. They are definitely different from the rest of my cookies, but that’s what we want – NYC cookies are a world of their own. I teased this post on my Instagram a little while ago and you guys went crazy for them… so I hope you are READY!!
This recipe is quite easy to follow, luckily. I wanted to make it as simple as possible – but obviously any questions, leave them below.
The cookie dough
The cookie dough for this recipe is quite similar to the other NYC Cookie recipes I’ve shared on my blog – the basic cookie dough, as you will see can be used in so many variations, but they work for me – so why change it?
- Butter – I use fridge-cold baking spread or room-temperature block butter, but either works well.
- Sugar – A blend of granulated sugar and light brown soft sugar enhances the flavour and gives the cookies a rich taste.
- Egg – I usually bake with medium eggs, but you can substitute with one large egg if that’s what you have on hand.
- Flavours – Vanilla extract is optional but add a wonderful depth of flavour.
- Flour – Always use plain flour for your cookies! Self-raising flour will result in a cake like texture, which you want to avoid.
- Raising Agents – I use both bicarbonate of soda and baking powder. Bicarb is the traditional choice for cookies, while baking powder helps achieve the signature texture of a New York-style cookie.
- Salt – I add sea salt to my cookie dough because it enhances the flavours, but you can skip it or use salted butter if you prefer.
Sugar
I use a mix of two sugars… light brown sugar (soft), and white granulated sugar. This is similar to my other recipes, such as my Mini Egg cookie bars – in the fact that it gives the best flavour and texture. You really want to stick to these if you can – but you can use all brown, or all white if you have to.
Switch the sugars to caster sugar can really change the texture. I’m not the biggest fan of caster sugar in cookies anymore – and if you try this recipe as listed, you will agree with me. There is alot of science behind sugars in cookies – and if you can grab the listed sugars I will promise you, they will be better.
Flour
Now when it comes to the flour… I stand by using cornflour in my other recipes. I really honestly do. I even think these are better with a bit of cornflour. The cornflour creates a softer texture in the cookie, without drying the cookie out. It’s perfection. However, a lot of you don’t like using it.
A lot of NYC Cookie recipes use a mix of flours, but again I wasn’t a fan… I wanted to make it be fewer ingredients. However, you can switch it up. You can easily use self-raising flour instead of plain, but you would then only use the bicarbonate of soda, and no baking powder
I use all plain flour and add in the baking powder to get the texture, and I love it. You want the rise from the raising agents to create the perfect texture.. and it really works! You want a decent amount of flour, and to help it raise to get the classic texture so that when you bite into it… heaven.
Chocolate?!
When it comes to the chocolate chips, I, as always, use actual chocolate chips. I use a 50/50 mix of milk chocolate and dark chocolate. You get the sweetness from the milk chocolate, but also some bitterness from the dark chocolate which creates the balance. You can, of course, use all of one or the other.
I like to use baking chocolate chunks as they are slightly larger, but you can use bars of chocolate that you can chop up, or you can use any supermarket chocolate chip. Honestly, any work. You can use a mix of other flavours of chocolate as well, or even adapt to include extras. I just wanted a base recipe on this particular recipe post.
Tips & Tricks
- These are best eaten on the day of baking, but can be revived by microwaving for 15-30 seconds, or putting into a hot oven for 2-3 minutes
- You can freeze the raw cookie dough easily, and bake from frozen if you don’t want to bake the entire batch
- If you are baking straight from frozen after some time, I usually bake for the same 12-14 minutes, at the same temp, but an extra couple minutes won’t hurt
- Once baked, these will last for 4-5+ days
- You can use any chocolate you fancy, I just love the combination of milk and dark chocolate
- You can use chocolate bars chopped up instead of chocolate chips, just make sure the chunks aren’t too big
- If your oven runs hot you will want to reduce the temp slightly as mentioned in the method
- If you prefer your cookies flatter, you can squish them down slightly before baking but I don’t do this personally
- If you want a lovely texture – you can add in 1 level tbsp of cornflour, and take out 25g of the flour
- If you can’t access one of the sugars, use all of the other one – i.e. all granulated, or all light brown sugar. Using other sugars can change the texture.
- If you want to make smaller cookies (60g) – they take about 9 minutes to bake
NYC Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Ingredients
- 125 g unsalted butter
- 100 g light brown sugar
- 75 g white granulated sugar
- 1 medium egg
- 1 tsp vanilla (optional!)
- 300 g plain flour
- 1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 300 g chocolate chips (150g dark, 150g milk)
Instructions
- Add your butter and sugars to a bowl and beat until creamy - I use my stand mixer with the beater attachment
- Add in your egg, and beat again. If using vanilla, add it in now
- Add in the plain flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and salt and beat until a cookie dough is formed
- Add in your chocolate chips and beat till they're distributed well
- Weigh your cookies out into eight cookie dough balls - they're about 120g each
- Once they're rolled into balls, put your cookie dough in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, or in the fridge for an hour or so
- Whilst the cookie dough is chilling, preheat your oven to 180C Fan, or 200C regular! If your oven runs hot, go for 160C-170c.
- Take your cookies out of the freezer/fridge and put onto a lined baking tray. I put four cookies per tray
- Bake the cookies in the oven for 12-14 minutes. I don't personally flatten the cookies, as they flatten enough during baking - however, if you like flat cookies, flatten them a bit before baking.
- Once baked, leave them to cool on the tray for at least 30 minutes, as they will continue to bake whilst cooling
- ENJOY!
Notes
- These are best eaten on the day of baking, but can be revived by microwaving for 15-30 seconds, or putting into a hot oven for 2-3 minutes!
- You can freeze the raw cookie dough easily, and bake from frozen if you don't want to bake the entire batch!
- If you are baking straight from frozen after some time, I usually bake for the same 12-14 minutes, at the same temp, but an extra couple minutes won't hurt!
- Once baked, these will last for 4-5+ days!
- You can use any chocolate you fancy, I just love the combination of milk and dark chocolate!
- You can use chocolate bars chopped up instead of chocolate chips, just make sure the chunks aren't too big!
- If your oven runs hot you will want to reduce the temp slightly as mentioned in the method!
- If you prefer your cookies flatter, you can squish them down slightly before baking but I don't do this personally!
- If you want a lovely texture - you can add in 1 level tbsp of cornflour, and take out 25g of the flour!
- If you can't access one of the sugars, use all of the other one - i.e. all granulated, or all light brown sugar. Using other sugars can change the texture.
- If you want to make smaller cookies (60g) - they take about 9 minutes to bake!
ENJOY!
Find my other Traybake Recipes on my Recipes Page!
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J x
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Hi Jane! Absolutely love your cookies recipes! I was wondering whether these could be made gluten free if I replaced the flour with GF flour?
I haven’t made these GF myself, but many readers have and said it works well with a straight swap! x
Didn’t have any sea salt so just added a pinch of ordinary. I made them into 55-60g balls and still found these plenty big enough! Cooked 4 first, flattened two and left two round, unfortunately they didn’t spread at all so about 8 mins into cooking I gave those two a gentle whack with a spatula – much better! At least I know to flatten the rest. 12 mins at Fan 175, cooled completely on the tray – absolutely incredible, no other cookie recipe will compare now. Not sure how long the bag of cookie dough in the freezer will last!
Hi Jane, I’m yet to make this recipe just wanted to ask a question first, does the butter need to be softened to room temp?
Baking spread is cold from fridge, butter is slightly room temp but not completely x
Hi Jane,
I’ve accidentally ordered dark brown soft sugar, would this still work?
Yes! Just makes them darker in colour and slightly deeper in flavour!
these cookies are amazing! when i bake them for mother’s day can you use the 9×9 square tin for like a “traybake” of cookies?
Hello! Personally I would just use one of my cookie bar recipes for this as they are made for just this!x
I’ve made these cookies several times, we love them in our house! Mine don’t normally flatten much but today I accidentally used 175g butter because I was distracted and they flattened nicely and turned out to be my best batch so that was a happy accident! I always use the cornflour as mentioned in the notes below the recipe. Great recipe all round! Thank you xx
Hi Jane,
I had some trouble with these cookies and was wondering if you could help me. At the 12 minute mark the cookies hadn’t spread at all (they were just slightly squatter balls) and the bottoms cooked much faster than the tops and sides, so that when I got them out of the oven they were burnt. (Full disclosure: I had kept them in longer 12 minutes because the sides hadn’t browned). Do you have any tips for what I could do differently next time (besides not cooking them for an ungodly amount of time)?
Thanks for sharing so many recipes with us!
So not spreading can be a few things – rolling the cookie dough balls too tight, over mixed dough… or an oven that is too hot as the higher heat than normal is designed to ‘shock’ the cookies into a less spread shape. It’s worth lowering them temp of yours if the bottoms were burning as well x
The most soft, gooiest, tastiest cookies – they beat shop bought ones! I used the cornflour as suggested, and rather than make the whole batch at once froze the Dough balls and cook a few when I fancy them for dessert – amazing warm with ice cream! I did however have to slightly flatten mine halfway through cooking as they didn’t flatten that much themselves. The taste of the sea salt is amazing too and really brings out the choc chip flavour. Going to try with the mini eggs next! I also baked for around 14 mins instead of 12 from frozen.
Hello! I am so glad you enjoy them, yes when frozen they will always need baking for a couple of minutes longer xx
These are just insane! I used to bake all the time but sort of lost my passion for it and never went back to it. Recently, after discovering your recipes, I’ve been baking every weekend and the recipes are just incredible!!! My family are pretty happy with it too, to say the least 😍☺️
Hi Jane,
Can I make these cookies with white chocolate chips instead? Does it make it too sweet/should I be modifying the sugar amounts?
Hello, yes you can!xx
Simple, easy to follow recipe for a novice baker. Husband is a chef and he loved these, will definitely be making other variations!
Hi Janes I made the NYC cookies for the first time with your recipe. I don’t know how to describe it was soooooo yummy. I think by baking first time with the exact same measurements it was too good. Thankyou so much.
I LOVE THESE!!!!!!! I used unsalted butter first time round, if i was to use Stork, do i use the block or the from the tub? thanks!!
I use the tub! xx
There is a block of stork that says for “biscuits scones and pastry’s” and that one worlds fine!
I’ve just eaten two and am now in a food coma. Soooo good!
Is corn starch and corn flour the same thing?
Yes!
Tried these out yesterday. All I’m going to say is make sure that you do not use table salt in place of the sea salt (just don’t add salt unless you have sea salt) and also don’t mix up the bicarb and baking powder measurements (I’m normally so good with this stuff!). Made for some slightly salty weird tasting cookies, but the texture was gorgeous and much better than the usual recipe I use. So I decided to make a new batch today without salt and with the right amount of ingredients and they turned out just as good in texture and actually taste like they should. Tried one about half an hour out of the oven too and that was yummy, but they’re great once left to fully cool as well. All around a great recipe!!
I second this i used sea salt and they tasted far too salty wish I had left it out 😫
I just tried making two batches and my dough came out like sand! So dry! Maybe I’m measuring wrong. Do you have measurements converted to cups? I googled the conversions but maybe they were wrong.
The cup conversion will have done it I’m afraid – always weigh with scales so its accurate!
such a delightful read for cookies lovers . the baking tips and flavour ideas are super helpful and easy to follow!