Levain-style (giant) chocolate chip walnut cookies

First week of June: The George Floyd protests take place. All the news is a bit much for me, so I take a break from social media.

June 12: A protest takes place in my city; roommate expresses regret for missing it. I begin to wonder if maybe the protests are more urgent than I’d thought.

June 16: After making myself return to Instagram to be more informed about the news, I stumble upon @bakersagainstracism, which is hosting a virtual bake sale the coming weekend to raise funds for organizations supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. It looks cool. I decide to follow their account.

June 17: I think about what I could do in response to the movement, especially as a Christian.

June 17, afternoon: I realize I could be doing the #bakersagainstracism bake sale too.

June 18: I start thinking about which baked good would be easy to bake but bring in enough revenue to raise substantial funds. I decide that cookies would be good—and that Levain cookies would be perfect.

June 19: Juneteenth. I deliberate on pricing and fund recipients, and decide on the orgs supported by Google to maximize donation matching. I #yolo and open orders on Instagram and Facebook. Orders eventually start trickling in, I make the first few batches, and by the time midnight rolls around, I realize I need to pick up more groceries in order to fulfill all the orders.

June 20: I make a grocery run early in the morning, and spend the rest of the day making ALL the cookie dough. Some come up to pick up their orders, and I deliver a few more by night.

June 21: By this time I’ve gotten so many orders that I’d need to make yet another grocery run to fulfill orders. When my roommates find out that I hadn’t closed orders yet, they become indignant and tell me to do so. I do so. I take the rest of the afternoon to make the rounds and drop off cookies.

June 22: I finish picking up the last of the groceries and baking the last of the batches.

June 24: My aunt picks up the last of the baked batches, bringing the total number of cookies ordered to 128.

What an adventure. I learned a lot and baked more than I ever had in one weekend. I have so much more respect for people who do this for a living lol. Most of all, though, the experience challenged me to rethink my views on race and dig deeper into current news and systemic racial injustice. This bake sale is really just the beginning.

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Some baking notes:

• I made double batches in my stand mixer, which had the happy by-product of having some easier (whole number) measurements.
• I tried some batches with room-temperature butter, and did not notice a marked difference. (definitely saves time on cutting butter)
• When making this recipe, I usually measure out 6-oz mounds of cookie dough, wrap individually in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. I baked the cookies for 26 minutes (rotating halfway) when baking straight from the fridge.
• I finished the cookies with flaky sea salt.
• I found that when making larger batches, you can get away with fewer chocolate chips and walnuts than called for in the recipe (haha). If I weren’t so constrained on ingredients I wouldn’t have skimped on them.
• Costco will always be my go-to for bulk flour, white sugar, eggs, butter and chocolate chips, but Trader Joe’s is a great back-up for chocolate chips and walnuts. Smart & Final is a decent Costco alternative (has 25-lb bags of bread flour too!).

(original recipe from Sweet Tea + Thyme)