Eggless Levain Bakery-Style Chocolate-Chip Cookies
One of our favourite eggless chocolate-chip cookies, inspired by the classic Levain Bakery recipe. These cookies are thick with softly-crisp edges and a gooey middle. Use chocolate-chunks instead of chocolate-chips for dramatic puddles of melted chocolate! This is a small-batch recipe making 2-3 giant cookies; double the ingredients for a larger batch.
Ingredients
- 113 gm (1 cup less 1 tbsp) all-purpose flour
- 7½ gm (1 tbsp) cornflour
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 113 gm (½ cup) butter, softened (if using salted butter, omit adding salt separately)
- 50 gm (¼ cup) dark brown sugar (you can use soft brown sugar for a less rich flavour)
- 55 gm (¼ cup) caster sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 30 ml (2 tbsp) milk (see recipe notes)
- ½ cup dark chocolate chips/ chocolate-chunks (use chocolate-chunks instead of chocolate-chips for more gooey cookies)
Instructions
- Sift the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, baking soda, cornflour and salt) into a mixing bowl. Give it a good whisk until evenly mixed. Set aside.
- Using an electric mixer, beat the softened butter and sugars together until smooth and fluffy. Whisk in the vanilla.
- Slowly fold in the dry ingredients. Then stir in the chocolate chips/ chunks. Do not over-mix!
- Cover the cookie dough and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours.
- Once chilled for sufficient time, remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Preheat your oven to 180°C.
- Form 2 -3 cookie dough balls of equal size (see recipe notes). Bake for 10 - 12 minutes until the edges have browned but the cookie is still soft and hasn't fully set.
- Let the cookies cool down on the baking sheet for 15-20 minutes before carefully transferring them to a wire rack. Enjoy once fully cooled!
Notes
- This is a small-batch recipe which makes just 2-3 cookies (depending on the size of your cookie dough balls). Double the ingredients for a larger batch.
- When stirring the dry ingredients and chocolate chunks into your creamed butter and sugar - don't be alarmed if the mixture is crumbly and more like a shaggy mass. Add a shallow tbsp of milk little by little to bring it together until firm and shapeable into classic cookie dough. Only add as much milk as you need (I usually need just about 1.5 tbsp). Adding more milk than required will skew the moisture content of the cookie, drastically altering the result.
- Chill the dough for at least two hours in order to prevent the cookies from over-spreading.
- Once removed from the refrigerator, shape the cookie dough into 2 - 3 equally sized balls (depending on how large you want the cookies to be!). Shape the cookie dough in a tall conical form if you want the classic thick Levain-Bakery style cookies; alternatively flatten the cookie dough slightly before baking if you just want giant cookies.
- Remove the cookies from the oven once the edges have browned but have not fully firmed up and the centre is still soft. Remember that these cookies will continue to bake once out of the oven and could take at least half an hour to firm up into a solid state