Vegan Levain Style Salted Caramel Pretzel Cookies
If there is one food trend I’m forever all about, it’s Levain style cookies! If you’re not familiar with Levain, its a widely loved NYC bakeshop that features all the baked staples. It’s so good you’ll see it on tv left and right and everyone raves about this shop. So how did their cookie become so iconic?
I’ll tell you!
Everyone loves a classic chocolate chip cookie, but this approach is just next level. It features cake flour, which adds a lightness, lots of butter (needed), more brown sugar than white for more of a softer cookie texture, and the one strategy I love most is that they make the height of the cookie sky high. By adding height the inside cooks slower making it more of a doughy center. Last but not least, the temperature is key as its higher than traditional cookies at 410 degrees, giving you a crisp outer edge and just a slightly soft center.
The combination of all these variables truly delivers a fab cookie that will make you say, wow, I’m never going back to traditional cookies! When thinking of the next best variation of this cookie, I knew we had to do a classic Salted Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies! There are many flavor that come and go, but caramel and pretzels go seamlessly together! While we’ve done about 10 different Levain Style cookies here, this one was a must!
What’s fab about my vegan version? Everything! It’s salty, sweet, modeled after the most sought after Levain replica recipe, features just flax eggs, can all be made in 1 bowl, you don’t have to sift in the dry ingredients, you can even add them all at the same time if desired, it uses vegan butter and stevia sweetened chocolate chips, mirrors the real deal, compromises nowhere with texture or flavor, requires no chill time (thank goodness), it’s crispy on the outside and a little soft on the inside, packs just the right amount of caramel, tons of chocolate chips, a lots of pretzels!
If you love fab vegan cookies or food trends, you have to try these new vegan Levain Salted Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Vegan Levain Style Salted Caramel Pretzel Cookies
- Total Time: 25 mins
- Yield: 6-8 Extra Large or 24 Small 1x
Ingredients
- 1 cup Vegan Butter, cold, cut into small cubes
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 cup White Sugar
- 2 tbsp ground flax combined with 6 tbsp water
- 1 1/2 cups Cake Flour
- 1 1/2 cups Flour
- 1 teaspoon Cornstarch
- 3/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 3/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1 1/2 cups Stevia Sweetened Chocolate Chips
- 1 cup chopped pretzels
- 1/2 cup chopped vegan caramels
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- In a small bowl combine the ground flax and water. Set aside to thicken. This will serve as the eggs in the cookie
- Preheat oven to 410 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together cold cubed vegan butter, brown sugar, and white sugar for 2-4 minutes or fluffy. If you over mix it will be runny. Pro tip: don’t take out the butter until you need it so it will be very cold.
- Add flax egg mixture and extract, and mix well on low (1-2 mins)
- (You can add all the dry ingredients to the bowl all at once, but I prefer this way) In a large bowl combine all of the dry ingredients.
- Gradually add in the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in increments (flours, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt) mixing after each time just a little until combined. Avoid over mixing. Stir in chocolate chips, chopped caramels, and copped pretzels.
- Separate dough into large roughly shaped balls and place on lightly colored cookie sheet. Don’t make the dough too smooth, you want the dough roughly formed and tall. You will fit 4 cookies on one large cookie sheet. The dough makes 6-8 extra large cookies.
- Bake for 9 minutes or until golden brown on the top. Let them rest for at least 10 minutes to set.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 8-9 mins
Normally, I would never attempt to recreate a cookie that looks as spectacular as these, and if I do, I certainly don’t expect them to come out looking like the photos from the recipe. To my absolute delight, these cookies not only came out looking fabulous, but they were also a HUGE hit at the gathering we took them to. So much so, that two people asked for the recipe, which I happily shared. I’m definitely going to try my hand at other recipes here!