Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

Levain Bakery's soft cookies have been enormously popular for the past few years.  In Australia, Thic Bic have been the forerunners in these cookies, creating gorgeous flavours like Biscoff, Pandan & Coconut and of course the classic Chocolate Chip.  Another great producer of these cookies is Brooki's Bakehouse, who ship thousands of boxes all over the world daily.

After a request for a softer cookie from my son, I finally decided to give these cookies a crack.  I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out.  They're easy to bake and very satisfying to make.  

Pro tip: You don't have to make the giant-sized cookies like the commercial bakers are doing - after all we need to save room for other delicious baked goods, right?


Ingredients

250g butter
1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
1.5 cups self raising flour
1.5 cups plain flour
1.5 tsps baking powder
1 tblsp corn flour
250g dark chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts - I used hazelnuts

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius (fan forced) or 180 if you don't have a fan. Line two baking trays with baking paper, or a silicon baking mat if you have one.

  2. Cut the butter into cubes and place in the bowl of your stand mixer.  After all these years, my Kitchenaid is still going strong. I use the paddle beater for this task.  Add the brown sugar and white sugar and mix to combine.

  3. Add the vanilla and increase the mixer speed to 6, then cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until it is pale.  This is important as the creaming process contributes to the soft cakiness of the cookies.

  4. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl after each addition.

  5. Once the eggs are thoroughly combined, add the flours.  Turn the mixer on to first gear and mix just long enough for all the ingredients to be combined and the dough to be formed.  First gear on the Kitchenaid is the equivalent of stirring by hand.  Don't go fast and don't mix for too long or your cookies will be tough.

  6. Remove the paddle from the mixer and add the chocolate chips and nuts to the dough.  Combine by hand, using a folding, pushing motion until the chips and nuts are dispersed evenly through the dough.

  7. Form the dough into 60g balls.  I use a digital scale for this as I want every cookie to be the same size.  Place the dough balls about 3 inches apart on the tray.  They do spread.

  8. Bake in the oven for 18 minutes.  Cooking time will depend on how you oven behaves.  You want the top to be pale but the bottom to be golden.  

  9. Allow the cookies to rest on the baking tray for 5 minutes when you get them out of the oven, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.  You should get 24 cookies out of this mix.

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