Levain's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Levain's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies 

It all began last Wed in class. My friend Anna-leigh opened up a white bakery bag to reveal a giant treat that looked more like a scone than a cookie. Earlier in the day she had gone to Levain bakery for a post-lunch dessert. The smell of her cookies kept wafting over to my seat. I had to try a bite! 

The cookie she chose was Levain Bakery's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookie. Levain Bakery, for those of you who are unfamiliar with NYC's top bakeries, is said to have one of the best chocolate chip cookies in the 5 boroughs. The New York Times declared it possibly the "largest, most divine chocolate cookie in Manhattan." Now that's a recommendation. If you find yourself on the upper west side, you should certainly stop by and grab yourself a treat. If you're not from New York, go online and order yourself a few. These cookies can be enjoyed by all!

Levain Bakery wont publish their cookie recipes but they're kind enough to include links to wanna-be Levain bakers right on their website. There are tons of copy cat recipes for Levain's cookies! Most of the recipes I found were for the award winning chocolate chip cookies, but I could not get my mind off of Annaleigh's dark chocolate peanut butter treat! Luckily I found a recipe on Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. The recipe creates a cookie with the same dense, moist crumble and bold chocolate flavor. I chose to make mine a little smaller, but the stiff dough would certainly lend itself to recreating that rounded scone effect that originally caught my eye in class. 

____________________________________

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

• 2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup good unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp Kosher salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups peanut butter chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. With an electric mixer cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and beat until combined. Beat in cocoa powder.

2. Whisk together flour, salt and baking powder in a separate bowl. Beat dry ingredients into butter-sugar-cocoa mixture. Beat in chocolate and peanut butter chips.

3. Using a cookie scoop, form dough into round mounds and spread evenly on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper 

4. Bake cookies for 10 minutes, or less if you like them fudgy. Remove cookies and let them cool on a wire rack. 

As Parsley, Sage, Desserts & Line Drives points out, Levain's recipe calls for no vanilla extract. I didn't add it and they will still delicious. I think leaving out the vanilla really allows the rich chocolate flavor to take over. 

Note: I'm an idiot. I went to the food store and bough butterscotch chips, not peanut butter chips, because I was in a rush. These are much better with peanut butter chips so pay attention! Even though they look the same, they certainly do not taste the same. I counter balanced the distinct flavor of the butterscotch chips with extra semi-sweet chocolate morsels and a bit of white chocolate. They weren't exactly what I was hoping for, but they taste lovely. Enjoy!