Midnight snack!

These are serious cookies.


Besides being chocolate with chocolate chips and mini peanut butter cups, they are (were) the size of your head, melty hot, and served with cold milk. YUMS.

Here's Nicole and Vanessa's secret recipe aka thanks internet:

Levain Bakery Copycat Dark Chocolate Peanut butter Chip Cookies (**Yield - 1 dozen cookies)

Ingredients

• 2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• ***1/4 to 1/2 cup good quality dark cocoa powder (we used 1/2 cup)
• 2 1/4 to 1/2 cups all-purpose flour- Spoon and Sweep method (what? just googled it. didn't do that.)
• 1/4 tsp Kosher salt
• 3/4 to 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips ("1 cup" aka dumped in the bag)
• 2 cups peanut butter chips (we substituted with TJ's peanut butter cups, which turned out wonderfully melty)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugar until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well-incorporated, then beat in cocoa powder.

2. Mix in flour, salt and baking powder until just combined. Gently fold in remaining ingredients.

3. Transfer dough to clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients. Divide into 12 equal portions, **about 4 oz each, and place each on sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Bake in the preheated oven 16-20 minutes depending on how gooey and raw’ish you like the middles (I bake mine at 375 for 18 minutes, as I prefer a less raw’ish’ interior), taking care not to overbake. . Let cool on a rack and store what you don’t immediately eat, in an airtight container. To freshen them after a few days (if they last that long), give them a quick nuke in the microwave for 5-10 seconds.

Note – The Levain Bakery doesn’t use vanilla extract in their cookies, as they feel it’s unecessary. However, some feel you need it. You can add 1 tsp to 1 T to each recipe if desired. Just add it after each egg is incorporated.

** Note – The Levain Bakery uses 6 oz of cookie dough per cookie. As mentioned above, If you want 12 cookies out of the above recipes, a little over 4 oz per cookie (4.1 to 4.2 oz. Use a kitchen scale) will get you that. If you want to use 6 oz of cookie dough per cookie, you’ll probably get only 6-8 cookies. However, a little over 4 oz makes a cookie just as thick and huge, so you don’t even notice the difference.

*** Note – Regarding the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies. I mostly use Dutch-process cocoa. If you use basic, natural unsweetened cocoa (you know, the Hershey’s in the brown can or whatever), add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp baking soda (I just use a heaping 1/4 tsp when using regular baking cocoa) to the dry ingredients. Also, if they’re too ‘chocolatey’ and rich for you, use only 1/4 cup cocoa powder, and add 1/4 cup extra flour.

[as the site mentions, we were attempting to copy levain bakery (which will soon be our neighbor—hooray!). ours ended up way flatter—still don't know how they get them so thick—but equally undercooked, and therefore equally delicious. -n]