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 🙂
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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.)
Ummm, okay- this recipe is from heaven. Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe with us!! Just made these cookies today and they taste just like Tates’ cookies!! They’re so crispy, airy, delicious, super easy to make, and dangerously addictive ??? I reduced the amount of white sugar by 1/4, and scooped the cookie dough into balls using a teaspoon. They’re just perfect ??
I’ve tried a LOT of flat crispy cookie recipes and this one is by far the best. I bit into one and said out loud to myself “oh my god???” Id give it 6 stars if I could. And yes, it tastes identical to tates!
Maybe I left it in the oven too long (pulled it a few minutes before the recipe called btw). Regardless, will likely not be making this again.
I followed this recipe exactly. The cookies taste good but did not spread and have the correct texture. So I experimented with it in some different ways. I tried making the cookie smaller. Still not quite right. So I decided to use the smaller size scoop and turn the oven down to 325. Still left them in between 10:00 and 12 minutes. So far that worked the best. I will try this recipe again.
This recipe was exactly as stated. They definitely taste like Tates. The only thing I would change is dropping the size of the cookie down to teaspoon instead of tablespoon. They spread too much that I had to cut them apart before they cooled. Other than that they were delicious!
Tried baking this today and turned out great! we love them. Can i cut down on the sugar to make it less sweet?
So so good! My boyfriend loves thin and crispy cookies. Pretty sure he fell in love with me because of them. I was using a modified recipe for the last 2 years, which was always a pain and required a lot of guesswork with varying successes. FINALLY I decided to try something different and I am so glad I did. These are foolproof, so quick and easy, and way better than anything I had managed to make before. Incredible. Just incredible
So, I made these and thought the overall flavor was good but with a very baking-soda-like aftertaste. But I brought them to the event I made them for because it was too late to make anything else! I found out there that my opinion is unpopular. Everyone adored them. I had people approaching me as I tried to leave with my dish to ask if there were any left and if they could have one more. All but a few cookies of a double batch disappeared.
So definitely try this recipe. Apparently 99 out of 100 people love it!
I’m happy about the 99% ~ but if you’re sensitive to baking soda you could use less soda, or mix with baking powder next time. It also could be that the cookie(s) you ate had some clumps of baking soda in them, which can happen if it doesn’t get really well whisked into the dry ingredients. Some people like to sift it for that reason.
Thanks so much! I think I may just be sensitive to it. My husband said he wouldn’t have classified the flavor as baking soda if I hadn’t said anything. He said he actually thinks that kind of salty flavor with a slight “bite” is what everyone loves about it. So I wouldn’t change a thing about it! People were seriously raving. I wouldn’t mess with a good thing!
The best recipe ever for America’s treasured cookie….but much more than that the cookie batter has become a magnet for seeing my grandkids. I make the batter at home, put it in a zip lock and magically, they find time to mold them and secretly add a few more chips here and there and bake them…this is as good as it gets in the ” baking together” adventure and greatly cherish the moments being part of their busy schedule.