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!
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J x
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I made these recent but the bottom and middle were still soft and collapsed but the outside was brown
Did you move them off the tray before the 30 minutes? As they cool they are still technically baking and this step is important – They are softer centred cookies! x
Can I put them in the fridge to chill if I don’t have enough space in the freezer?
For sure! x
Freeze them and into the oven. They hold their shape really well and dont flatten. I bake on a silpat.
I love making these cookies, they taste great, the kids love them and I love you can freeze them to bake fresh later.
I want to make some for my son’s class but some of the children are dairy free. Would it work with dairy free spread instead of unsalted butter? 🙂
Thank you
Flora plant butter works great
Gorgeous recipe, super simple but very indulgent. Only wish I’d made a bigger batch!
This recipe is super. I was wondering has anyone tried making it with spelt flour?
I have a batch in the freezer for a little over 3 months. 19 days over to be exact.. are they still ok or do I need to start fresh?
They will be fine – 3 months is a general food guide, but theory is they can freeze forever!
I’ve been making these cookies from this recipe for years now and they are always a hit! I finally got to try the Levain choc chip cookies on a trip to NY and can confirm this recipe gets you as close to the original inspiration for it as possible!
Hi! Quick question – I want to add desecrated coconut to these to make coconut cookies, how much would you recommend to add? And would I need to alter the recipe any other way? Also just to add, these are my ultimate go to cookie recipe, I have made so many variations and they are all absolutely incredible!!!
I made these today for the first time. I found my dough crumbly when making balls. I have them in the freezer now. I hope they turn out ok.
This means it just needs a little warmth to bring together from your hands – depending on how you mix it may need more mixing to bring it together more smoothly x
how many cookie’s do you get in 120 grams of cookie dough?
Hi Jane
The cookies turned out very well but I’ve found there’s a really weird baking soda/ bicarbonate of soda aftertaste even though I followed the recipe to the T. I’m wondering what went wrong?
Hi Jane! I would like to make this recipe into a cake. Hiw many minutes should i bake it please? Thank you thank you so much!
I love this recipe, have these cookies twice now and they’re a family favourite!
Quick question though, when baking my cookies don’t really flatten out at all, they pretty much stay in the ball when I pull them out of the freezer.
I have a thermometer in the over to make sure it’s the right temperature and I’ve followed the recipe but can’t work out why they stay round!
Thanks
This will be either over worked dough then, or because the cookie dough is rolled too tightly. Also, it can be the oven setting rather than temp so it’s also worth lowering the oven temp a bit anyway x
I always give mine a quick press with my hand when they’re nearly cooked to flatten them a little bit. Be quick cos it’s hot but it ALWAYS works 👍
Hello! What type of flour can I substitute for plain flour? I can’t find plain flour in our local groceries T_____T
In the USA I believe it is known as all purpose or general purpose flour.
Plain flour is the same as all purpose flour if you’re in the US 😊
I tried the frozen method as I wanted my friends to try
straight out the oven – unfortunately it didn’t work.
The cookies didn’t flatten at all!
I am defrosting the dough right now to make sure it’s not the cookies. (I have tried this recipe ALOT! and it’s always been amazing!)
Still highly recommend! Just not the frozen way!
The best cookie recipe ever!! I’m planning to bake a giant version and have looked at your other recipes but wondered if a cook time for this in a cake time would be 25-30 mins? I know I could bake these in my sleep so I trust it.
Fabulous recipe. I decided to make smaller cookies to make them a little more portion friendly and used a regular sized cookie scoop; this made 16 thick palm sized cookies – I can’t imagine how massive they’re meant to be as these are totally big enough! Cooked them for 10mins until the faintest brown round the edges, gorgeous. Also used up chocolate in the cupboard so did a combo of cheapo and Cadbury with a handful of smarties thrown in for good measure. Perfection!
My go-to cookie recipe! I’d love to adapt the base of this cookie to be almond croissant flavour but I’m unsure how to do it without messing with the balance of the recipe. Has anyone attempted this?
I find using AI to adjust recipes to be the easiest way 🙂
honestly the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ive tried. i halved the recipe and made each cookie a smaller portion and it still turned out great. soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. highly recommend!!!
Absolutely love this recipe!! Delicious 😋
I do wonder if you could add cocoa powder? And if so how much? Would you need to take anything out?
There’s a chocolate NYC Cookie recipe here – they’re lush!
https://www.janespatisserie.com/2020/05/06/triple-chocolate-nyc-cookies/
In her cook book she says use 250g plain flour and 35g cocoa powder