I am a regular watcher of Food Network's show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, where pro chef Bobby Flay goes up against chefs from around the country and challenges them to beat their dish of expertise. It's a great show. The only drawback to watching is that I start craving whatever the challenging dish is! Recently, I saw one where Bobby went up against Levain Bakery located in New York City. This bakery specializes in gigantic, chewy, chocolate chip walnut cookies. I personally have not tried these cookies, but I will definitely try to the next time I visit NYC. After watching the show, I could not stop thinking about these cookies, and I had to make them. The bakery would not divulge their recipe on the show. Luckily, there are several food bloggers out there who have painstakingly re-created it by trial and error. Bless them!
Now, I am not a baker by any means. I'll throw together a boxed brownie mix any day, but rarely do I take the time to put all those ingredients together from scratch. Why would I do that when the mix is just as good? However, in the case of cookies, I can always tell the difference between the mixes and scratch. When I compare the work to make these cookies and the work to make other meals in this blog, baking these cookies from scratch was not that bad. My only real problem was when my dinky handheld mixer started making noises like a dying cat and emitting a funky burning smell, then I knew I was in trouble. Fortunately, the old mixer persevered and I was able to combine all the ingredients. The hard work by me and my mixer was totally worth it. These cookies were fantastic.
Instead of recreating the recipe steps, I'll just point to the link where I found this wonderful blog and recipe and post a picture of mine. This gives me more time in which to eat the cookies I made. :) A few notes: I used 1/2 Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 Nestle milk chocolate chips. I used shelled walnuts, toasted them in a skillet, and broke them up a bit for big chunks in my big cookies. I used 2 3/4 cup flour (the recipe gives a range). Finally, I baked mine for 17 minutes (range is 16-20).
Enjoy!
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