If you love a thin, crisp chocolate chip cookie, this is the one. Buttery, golden, and packed with toffee-like flavor, these Tate’s-style cookies bake up with that satisfying snap that gets rave reviews.
If you love Tate’s thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies, you’re absolutely going to flip for this recipe. The cookies bake up super crisp and buttery, and taste even better than the store-bought ones!
What readers are saying about these thin and crispy cookies
➡ Ummm, okay — this recipe is from heaven. Thank you!
➡ Sue. I just deleted every other chocolate chip cookie from my Pinterest! This recipe is the best I’ve ever made.
➡ I’ve been searching for a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe for YEARS…this is it!
➡ These are PERFECT! They’re actually better than Tate’s.
What’s your chocolate chip cookie style? Soft and plush, classic, or thin and crisp? If most of us are honest, we’ll take a chocolate chip cookie any way we can get it ~ but thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies have been on my radar ever since I grabbed a bag of Tate’s at the supermarket. They’re light, snappy, buttery, and dangerously easy to keep eating. I’m so glad I nailed this recipe because mine have that same delicate crunch, with even better homemade flavor.
The secrets to a truly thin and crispy chocolate chip cookie
Most of the time I’m aiming for a nice chewy cookie, like my Favorite Chewy Ginger Cookies or my Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies. But here the goal is different: crisp all the way through.
- Thin, crispy cookies usually have a higher proportion of butter and sugar, which encourages the dough to spread in the oven. As the cookies bake, that thin layer sets into a golden, crunchy texture with lots of buttery toffee flavor.
- The other key is baking them long enough for moisture to evaporate ~ pale cookies will stay bendy, while golden cookies cool into that crisp snap.
- And don’t judge them too soon ~ they’ll be soft when they first come out of the oven, then crisp up as they cool.
A few ingredient notes
The ingredient list will look familiar because it’s basically the same as most chocolate chip cookies. The difference here will be in the proportions.
- Quality counts: Use good-quality butter for baking any cookie recipe. Cheap brands add water and won’t bake up as well.
- Ditto for your vanilla extract: quality really matters here; the flavor of discount brands is flat and artificial.
- Cinnamon! A tiny amount of cinnamon adds a je ne sais quoi to my thin and crispy cookies, many readers have commented on this!
Tips for baking Tate’s-style cookies
Baking details that matter
- Be precise; don’t be tempted to mess with the ingredients or amounts.
- Line baking sheets with parchment.
- Bake one pan at a time.
- Make sure your oven temperature is accurate.
Getting the spread right
- Don’t chill the dough. Chilled dough won’t spread as well.
- Use a slightly heaped tablespoon of dough per cookie. It looks small, but the cookies spread quite a bit.
- Give them plenty of room on the baking sheet. I can only fit 5–6 cookies at a time.
- If your first tray spreads too thin or looks greasy, stir 1–2 tablespoons of flour into the remaining dough before baking the next tray.
Cooling and storing crispy cookies
- Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before moving them. They need that time to firm up.
- Transfer them carefully to a rack and let them cool completely.
- Store loosely covered at room temperature once fully cool. A cookie tin is ideal ~ you want to protect them without trapping moisture.
- If they lose a little crunch, pop them in a 300°F oven for a few minutes, then let them cool again.
So which is better, Tate’s or my cookies?
I have the utmost respect for Tate’s, and in fact our ingredient lists are exactly the same. But if you love to bake, these homemade cookies make sense on a few different levels.
They’re cheaper! You could spend up to $18 buying the same amount of cookies.
Homemade cookies can use higher quality ingredients (butter, chocolate) than commercial recipes baked at scale.
The flavor of homemade cookies always trumps store-bought, no matter how good the store-bought ones are.
And once you’ve mastered this thin and crispy chocolate chip cookie, you can have them anytime you want, and you can customize them in all sorts of ways. I’m planning to tackle Tate’s coconut crisps next 🙂
Add The View from Great Island as a Trusted Google Source
Thin and Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Video
Equipment
- parchment paper
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and soft but not melted
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour, measured carefully: fluff, spoon into the cup, and level off. Too much flour will make chewier cookies.
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Note: the parchment paper is important for preventing sticking, and getting the right texture in these cookies. Don't substitute silicone mats.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or with electric beaters, cream together the butter and sugars until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.
- Add the egg and vanilla to the butter mixture, and mix until well combined.
- Add the flour mixture to the bowl in two batches, mixing after each addition just until everything is combined. Add the chocolate chips, and mix briefly once more to incorporate them evenly.
- Scoop the dough into portions a little larger than 1 tablespoon, then roll into balls. Space them evenly on your baking sheet, leaving about 2-3 inches between each cookie to allow for spreading in the oven.
- Bake for about 14-15 minutes until the cookies are a rich golden brown.
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes. They will be very soft when they come out of the oven but will crisp up as they cool. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Store loosely covered at room temperature once completely cool.
Notes
Nutrition
More thin and crispy cookie recipes
Double Chocolate Thin and Crispy Cookies
Double chocolate thin and crispy cookies are just like the Tate’s cookies you love (but hate to pay for!)
Thin and Crispy White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Thin & Crispy White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies have the perfect balance of sweet, tart, and CRUNCH!
Thin and Crispy Sugar Cookies
Thin and Crispy Sugar Cookies are a Tate's style crunchy cookie that are deliciously easy (it's a no-chill no-roll drop cookie dough.)
Perfect thin and crispy chocolate chip cookie! The cinnamon takes it over the top. I made it exactly as per the recipe.
I have been searching for a thin and crispy cookie recipe that were ACTUALLY thin and crispy and oh my goodness, these were it! Thank you for all of your testing and perfecting that you did to land on this recipe. These cookies were so buttery and crispy all the way through. An absolute hit. Thank you!!
The cookies were too salty
Everybody has slightly different salt preferences, I like a bit of salt in my desserts. Be sure you use unsalted butter as stated in the recipe, or if you only have salted butter leave out the extra salt.
My family loves these cookies. I have made multiple times and they’re always delicious. I do omit the cinnamon and decrease the baking time to 10 minutes. Perfection!!
These are now my favorite cookies ever!
What a perfect recipe to make for my first time making chocolate chip cookies ever! After pestering my mom for the thin, crispy cookies that I remember fondly from my childhood, she couldn’t seem to pinpoint the exact flavor and chew of chocolate chip cookies I was looking for, as she swears by Cook’s Country recipes. I took matters into my own hands and found this recipe.. these are unbeatable. I plan on making these again this weekend and am thinking I will add 1/2 tsp of cinnamon instead of 1/4. My family is obsessed!
These were the first batch of cookies from scratch that I have ever made, and I couldn’t be happier. After pestering my mom to experiment with different chocolate chip cookie recipes, chasing the thin, crispy cookies that I fondly remember from my youth, she couldn’t quite pinpoint what I was looking for as she swears only by Cook’s Country. I took matters into my own hands and found this awesome recipe. Making these again this weekend and going to put 1/2 tsp of cinnamon instead of 1/4 to bring that cinnamon out even more. Cheers!
I was after thin and crisp chocolatehip cookies and I got them with this receipe.
Taking them on a canoe trip.
Wow! These came out dreadfully! Like another commenter, mine were flat, dark, and very greasy doilies with a clump of chocolate chips sitting in the middle after only 12 minutes. I used high quality ingredients and the temperature in my gas oven was spot on. I even used the metric measurements to be as precise as possible.
After trying several tweaks in an effort to salvage something edible, I finally put a sheet of foil on the rack below the one I was baking on, and increased the proportion of flour to the equivalent of 2 1/2 cups for the whole recipe. Those final three batches of cookies came out very similar to Tate’s except the cinnamon. I’ll be leaving that out next time. Did you test this recipe in a gas oven? They heat a lot differently than electric ovens.
Tried this today and the cookies turned out perfectly crisp and delicious. Only slight issue is my dough came out much wetter and softer than what’s shown in the video and it was impossible to roll into balls! Followed the recipe down to a T using the metric conversions, what could have gone wrong?
Glad you enjoyed these cookies Lana. As for your dough, the only wet ingredient is the one egg, so your dough should not be too wet. Be sure to use a large (not jumbo) egg, and make sure your butter is soft but not melted. The metric measurements are accurate. If it happens again, just add a bit more flour to firm up the dough.