Thin Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Real-Deal Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies

This one is for you real crispy cookie lovers. I’m not messing around today, sharing some cookie with slightly crisped edges but disappointingly soft and chewy centers, oh no. These are the real thing. I’m talking so crisp you can snap them clean in half, crunch all the way through, potato-chip-level-addictive, can’t-eat-just-one cookies. If you’re looking for something soft and chewy, you’re in the wrong place for once (psst… soft & chewy fans please check out my worst chocolate chip cookies!). If you’ve enjoyed my lace cookies, my brownie brittle, or my crispy gingersnaps, you’re going to love what I’ve created for you today. Weeks of careful testing and tweaking went into meticulously designing a dough that yielded a cookie with a crisp bite. It wasn’t easy (I have nearly two dozen versions that didn’t make the cut!) and I learned quickly that classic chocolate chip cookie ingredients just weren’t going to cut it. We needed to bring in something special, something a little different. Which… is kind of my specialty, anyway, so I wasn’t afraid to break outside of the box. Read on for the ingredients that come together to make these truly thin and crispy cookies.

What You Need to Make Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies

The ingredients to make these cookies thin and crispy were carefully chosen and I don’t recommend making any substitutions. It took me many attempts to get the recipe just right, and any alterations may result in cookies that aren’t quite right.

Butter. You’ll need one cup (this is two standard-sized sticks) of unsalted butter. It should be softened, but not so soft that the exterior is oily or greasy or the butter is beginning to melt on its own, or the cookies may spread too much in the oven. Cream this by itself first to ensure the butter is nice and smooth before adding any other ingredients, otherwise it may not mix smoothly with your condensed milk.Sugar. There is a high ratio of sugar in this recipe between the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and condensed milk. This is not by accident, it’s important in perfecting a cookie with an almost candy-like crunch to it, and therefore I do not recommend reducing the sugar.Sweetened condensed milk. My secret weapon! While it might seem like an odd ingredient to use, this one is perhaps most critical to making perfectly textured, truly crispy chocolate chip cookies (it’s also the key to making my perfectly smooth cookie dough frosting, different recipes, different uses!). It helps the cookies to spread so they’re thin, and it also helps to nearly crystalize the cookie dough as it bakes. It’s responsible for the snappy crispness of each cookie (along with the baking soda… more on that below). Make sure that you do not substitute any other kind of milk, especially not evaporated milk (which is often sold right beside it in a nearly identical can!).Baking soda. While the cookies will already be fairly thin without this ingredient, adding it helps to make the cookies more porous (and a bit more crackly on top, as a bonus). Baking soda makes them brittle and breakable which results in a crisp, crunchy texture (rather than obnoxiously stick-to-your-teeth, peanut brittle-esque one!).Flour. I only recommend using all-purpose (plain) flour. It’s absolutely critical that you measure this properly. For best results use a scale, but I talk a bit more about measuring flour below.Salt & vanilla add flavor. Chocolate chips. I like to use semisweet or dark chocolate chips, the very slight bitterness helps to counter the sweetness from the cookie. A blend of miniature and standard-sized chips is my preference, but feel free to use your favorite flavor and your favorite size.

Remember, this is just an overview of some of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!