Maman, the beloved New York City bakery, didn’t set out to make their famous nutty chocolate chip cookie. In fact, as a French-inspired café, they wanted to focus on coffee and pastries more than anything else. But when co-founders Elisa Marshall and Benjamin Sormonte started tinkering with the recipe alongside former chef Armand Arnal ahead of the cafe’s opening in 2014, the cookie ended up being so delicious they added it to the menu.
Two weeks later, the city was crazy over the confection.
Lines wrapped around the block. Cookies were completely gone by mid-morning, and hangry humans flooded the store. “One customer told us he drove 40 minutes to try it and was disappointed we had sold out,” Marshall recalls. As it turns out, Grub Street had written a viral article calling it one of the best cookies in New York.
Three years later, one very famous face agreed with them—Oprah, who put it on her “Favorite Things” list for 2017. “It was overwhelming to say the least. We were bombarded with orders pouring in from all around the country,” says Marshall, “We had to build a team of elves and find a workshop (aka kitchen space) pretty quickly, and came up with new systems, procedures... ultimately we had to build an entire new department.” Thankfully they were able to scale their sweet treat. Fast forward to 2021, and across their 11 locations, Maman makes one ton of their nutty chocolate chip cookie dough every eight days. Marshall and Sormonte have also evolved the recipe over the years—trading chocolate chips in for chocolate wafers, salted nuts for unsalted ones, and experimenting with new types of sugar.
Now, they’ve made the decision to share Maman’s famous cookie even further: by publishing the recipe in their new cookbook, Maman: The Cookbook, All Day Recipes to Warm Your Heart. Alongside 100 delectable Maman dishes, like banana lavender waffles with vanilla mascarpone, roasted delicata squash, and hazelnut and taleggio focaccia tartine, the recipe demystifies a cookie that, for so long, had people asking, how the hell do they make it gooey on the inside, crispy on the outside, and simultaneously salty, crunchy, and sweet?
To celebrate the cookbook’s September 14 release, Maman let Vogue reprint it below. (No more driving 40 minutes just to get a taste.)
Maman’s Nutty Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
11 ounces (310 g) dark chocolate baking wafers (such as Guittard)
2 sticks (8 ounces / (225 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (135 g) raw unsalted macadamia nuts
½ cup (56 g) sliced raw unsalted almonds
½ cup (50 g) raw unsalted walnut halves
1¾ cups (298 g) packed light brown sugar
2¼ cups (326 g) all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
2 large eggs
Directions
1 . In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the baking wafers, butter, macadamia nuts, almonds, and walnuts and mix on low for about
30 seconds to break down the nuts and chocolate a bit. Add the brown sugar and mix on low until the butter and sugar come together. With the mixer still running on low, gradually add the flour and salt and mix until incorporated. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition, and mix until the dough starts sticking to the sides of the bowl. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again and mix on low for 10 seconds more to evenly distribute the nuts and chocolate.
2 . Turn the dough out onto a large sheet of parchment paper and flatten into a square roughly 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick. Fold the parchment paper to completely cover and wrap the dough, place in a resealable plastic bag, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 7 days.
3 . Set a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F (180°C). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
4 . Divide the chilled dough into 14 equal portions (about 3½-ounces/100 g each) and using your hands, roll each portion into a ball. Arrange 7 balls of dough on the prepared sheet pan, spacing them about 3 inches (7.5 cm) apart, then use the palm of your hand to flatten into disks roughly ½ inch (1.25 cm) thick. Bake for 6 minutes. Rotate the sheet pan as needed for even baking and bake until the edges are browned but the centers are still a little gooey, 6 to 7 minutes longer. Let cool on the sheet pan for 10 minutes, then enjoy right away or transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
Reprinted with permission from Maman: The Cookbook by Elisa Marshall and Benjamin Sormonte with Lauren Salkeld. Copyright ©2021. Photographs by Linda Xiao. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
