Is there anything as joy-inducing as the first bite of a recently-baked chocolate chip cookie? I suppose the second bite comes close. And the third. Hell, my joy goes on well into the fifth cookie. During these socially isolated times, when we have spent days on end at home, where the pool remains unopened and the options for exercise are running around the basement, I’ve curbed the baking for a bit to stay within the waist size of 31.5 inches. It’s worked, but every now and then you need a chocolate chip cookie, and that calling came on a sunny Saturday. For most of my life, childhood and adulthood combined, I have tended not to want any nuts in a chocolate chip cookie. In the last few years, however, I’ve come around to nuts, and even, on occasion, raisins, something I never thought would happen. This isn’t about sour grapes though; apologies for the digression.
As I was saying, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. On this night, I was looking for some walnut action to go with the chocolate, and stumbled upon the copycat version of the Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Crush Cookie here. I followed it pretty closely, having to make do with all purpose flour instead of the cake flour (since markets are still out of most flour for some reason ~ who is still doing all this fucking baking right now?) and I thought for sure we had a can of cornstarch but it had disappeared. (I know because the last time I tried to use it I almost used the baking powder because they looked identical and I put them next to each other to prove I wasn’t losing my mind.) A quick search showed me that some rice flour could be used in place of it, and it was only a teaspoon so it didn’t look to make a huge difference. The only other change I made was using our last cup of chocolate chips and then using a cup of chocolate chunks. That change was for the better.
I was slightly wary of the recipe’s size of each cookie. Four per large cookie sheet? I shaped them into baseball-sized chunks, then flattened them into thick cookies, indenting the center a bit. The batter made eight, as described. I wasn’t sure. I baked on the underside of the timing, then ended up extending it about five minutes beyond the max. They turned out. A few more tweaks and this might be ready for sharing when it comes to be around people again. Last pic shows you one in the palm of my hand for some perspective. They really are this big!
I had two.
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