Levain Bakery's Upper West Side shop may be the size of a walk-in closet, but its reputation is global: The company's softball-sized chocolate chip cookies regularly make major media brands' NYC travel guides, and celebs from Oprah Winfrey to The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Ellie Kemper can't help but rave about them.
Typically, with most buzzed-about foods, there's a mile-long line to get your hands on one for the first few months or so, and then the world moves on to the next rainbow bagel or Freakshake, and it becomes much, much easier to pop in whenever you want to grab a bite. Not so with Levain—the lines remain pretty much all day, every day, even though it's been almost 16 years since they were first written about in InStyle, the New York Times and Men's Journal. It's intense enough that the company installed a webcam in its three locations so you can scope out the crowds before making your way there.
Naturally, we had to figure out how they're made. The cookies have a crisp exterior and a gooey, molten dough-like center, which meant using a higher-than-average temperature (375 degrees F) to give the outside some crunch.
They're also pretty buttery and absolutely loaded with chocolate chips, so splurge for the good unsalted butter—no margarine here—and go for the big bag of semisweet chocolate chips. You'll need two whole cups of them.
One batch of dough makes only about half a dozen cookies, but each one is pretty shareable. Of course, that whole idea of sharing may go out the window as soon as you take a bite.
Get the recipe on Delish.
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