This recipe makes chocolate chip cookies that are thin, soft, and buttery. The turbinado sugar adds a light crunch and the chopped chocolate ensures that there’s chocolate in every bite.
Who needs another chocolate chip cookie recipe? Well, I did. I wanted a recipe that combined everything I love about Alison Roman’s salted butter and chocolate chunk shortbread cookies—those perfect jagged shards of dark chocolate and the crunch of demerara sugar—with the thinness of a Tate’s cookie. But, and this is a big but, without that brittle Tate’s crunch. This recipe makes chocolate chip cookies that are thin and soft.
Not only does this recipe make fantastic cookies, it also invites you to slow down. The chocolate needs chopping. The butter needs melting. Even the dough asks me to take a breather－it requires a 30 minute rest. During this time, it transforms from a too-soft dough into a scoopable one. A good reminder that rest is, in fact, transformative.
It’s a recipe I turn to again and again. My quiet labor, paired with the dough’s needed rest, rewards me with buttery cookies that seem to be everyone’s favorite.
Key Ingredients Explained
The ingredient list for these cookies is a little finicky. You really do need demerara or turbinado sugar if you want that crunch. And chopped dark chocolate, instead of using chips or chunks, is a must for a taste of chocolate in every bite.
Dark Chocolate. Use dark chocolate and chop it with a serrated knife. Trader Joe’s One Pound Plus Dark Chocolate or Ghirardelli 70% Cacao Bittersweet bar are delicious in these cookies.
- Sugars. Dark brown sugar adds flavor and keeps the cookies soft. And the turbinado sugar adds a sugary crunch that I love. Demerara and turbinado are interchangeable. Sugar in the Raw and Florida Crystals are two popular brands
- Butter. I like to use salted butter for my cookie recipes.
- Flour. You want an all-purpose flour. I use Gold Medal All Purpose. Their bleached flour contains just the right amount of protein to hold these cookies together.
- Egg. This recipe uses a cold egg to bring the melted butter and sugar mixture together. Use it straight from the fridge.
The Key to Thin and Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies is Melted Butter and a Gentle Bake Temperature
While developing the recipe, I made two deliberate choices: using melted butter and baking the cookies at 325℉. Unlike traditional chocolate chip cookie recipes, there’s no creamed butter to trap air and give the cookies lift. Combined with a low oven temperature－which gives the dough time to spread before the cookies set－this creates the soft and paper-thin chocolate chip cookies of my dreams.
I also called on a trick I learned in culinary school: stirring in a cold egg to the melted butter-sugar mixture. It helps bring the dough together and you don’t need to fuss with bringing an egg to room temperature before making these cookies. Bonus!
After stirring the dough together, chill it for at least 30 minutes. This lets the flour absorb moisture and firms up the very soft dough. Skipping this step makes for greasy cookies (and no one wants that!). A chill time of 30 minutes to an hour of chilling is the sweet spot. Any longer than that and the cookies turn out thicker than I want.
Scoop the dough onto a parchment-lined pan. If you don’t have a cookie scoop, use about two tablespoons of dough. These cookies spread as they bake. You’ll want to leave about two to three inches between each dough ball. Bake until the cookies are golden brown and set.
Storing
These cookies keep nicely in an airtight container for about three to four days, depending on humidity, before drying out a bit. If you won’t enjoy them that quickly, place the cooled cookies in a freezer container. They freeze for at least three months.
I don’t recommend making this dough, freezing it, and baking at a later time. The longer it sits, the less the cookies spread. If you freeze the dough, you won’t get lovely thin cookies.
Thin and Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
This recipe makes chocolate chip cookies that are thin, soft, and buttery. The turbinado sugar adds a light crunch and the chopped chocolate ensures that there’s chocolate in every bite.
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups (225 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons (8 grams) baking soda
- 1 teaspoon (6 grams) salt
- 1 cup (225 grams) firmly packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup (100 grams) turbinado/demerara sugar
- 1 cup (225 grams; 2 sticks) salted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1 large cold egg, see note 1
- 6 ounces (170 grams) chopped dark chocolate, see note 2
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
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Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set the bowl aside.
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In a large bowl, stir together the melted butter, brown sugar, and cane sugar until smooth. Add the cold egg and vanilla extract. Whisk until thick.
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Switch to a wooden spoon or sturdy silicone spatula. Stir in the flour mixture. Mix until a dough comes together. You don’t want to see any flour clinging to the bottom of the bowl.
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Add the chopped chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is evenly mixed throughout the dough.
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Cover the bowl and chill the dough for 30 minutes.
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Preheat the oven to 325℉.
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Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper. Scoop into two tablespoons balls. These spread as they bake. Place 8 balls of dough on each pan.
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Bake until the edges are set and cookies are brown. About 10 minutes.
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Cook Fast, Eat Well Tip!
For extra flat cookies: Halfway through baking, lift the pan off the oven rack and carefully drop it down. You can also remove the pan from the oven, drop it onto a heat-proof surface and quickly return the pan to the oven.
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Cool the cookies on the pan for about three minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.
Recipe Notes
Note 1: A cold egg is key. Use one straight out of the refrigerator. It brings the melted butter and sugars together and makes the mix creamy.
Note 2: A serrated knife makes chopping chocolate a little easier. You want the chocolate to have both large and small pieces. This way chocolate dots the dough and is in every bite of cookie.
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