Canal House Thin and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
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A couple of weeks ago, a friend told me she had checked out Canal House Cooks Every Day from the library and described it as the loveliest cookbook she had seen in a long time.
Middle child that I am, afraid to miss out on any fun, I immediately followed suit. That night by the light of my itty bitty book lamp, I poured through every chapter, making mental notes of ingredients to purchase and recipes to try, feeling more wound up with every page I turned, finally closing my eyes to a photo of a sheet pan lined with chocolate chip cookies, the last beautiful image in the book.
The following morning, before even thinking about coffee, I set butter out to soften and turned to the recipe, credited to Katherine Yang, a New York City pastry chef. When the Canal House ladies sought Yang’s guidance for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever, Yang passed along this one, a thin and crisp variety, one that perfectly balances that irresistible salty-sweet dynamic — there’s no need to top these off with any flakes of fancy sea salt.
Crisp on the edges, chewy in the center, buttery with chocolate chunks throughout, these delicate cookies are enough to convert the thick-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookie lover in me forever. They are delectable. Even Ben, who never does any heavy lifting in the dessert department, eats them by the half dozen and swears he could eat them by the whole. I wouldn’t put it past him.
While I know the last thing many of you need is another cookbook, I am confident none of you would regret this addition to your libraries. And while these chocolate chip cookies, as simple and classic and timeless as they are, in some ways perfectly capture the spirit of the Canal House cooks, they aren’t perhaps the best reflection of the cookbook.
With chapters organized by the months of the year, the book’s recipes are driven by the seasons, not only its produce gems — peas and favas in the spring, squash and apples in the fall — but also its preparations — grilled salmon in the summer, braised brisket in the winter.
Be warned: If you acquire it soon, it will make you seriously regret having not visited more pick-your-own strawberry farms this past May and might make you feel you squandered asparagus season entirely. But don’t despair: you will redeem yourself soon, vowing to make every tomato recipe in the August chapter.
The book is inspiring to say the least. It will make you want to hang your pots and pans from the rafters and tie up your apron with pride every time you set to work. It will make you covet your mother-in-law’s china collection and make you want to scour flea markets (or have a field day at Fish’s Eddy) for vintage serving platters. It might inspire you to clear off your kitchen table and break out your pasta roller. It might make you a pickler, a poacher, a preserver.
As you read the vignettes, you’ll find yourself daydreaming about how you might get into mushroom foraging this fall, and although you’ve felt quite lazy in recent months, you think you might even consider peeling — yes, stalk by stalk — your asparagus next spring. And if your pleasure reading gets interrupted one more time, perhaps by a disagreeable toddler throwing himself at your feet, you might find yourself wishing to be nothing more than a duck floating along the canal ready to snatch up bread and any other nuggets tossed out the Canal House studio’s open French doors. Ahhh, where would we be without our dreams?
Canal House Thin and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 11 minutes
- Total Time: 31 minutes
- Yield: 15 to 20
Description
Source: Canal House Cooks Every Day
Notes: For best results, make this batter and store it in the fridge at least 24 hours prior to baking and up to 1 week in advance.
I like to weigh (so anal, sorry) my cookie balls before baking and find that 1 oz (28 g) is a nice size for these cookies.
Also, if you like thick-and-chewy chocolate chip cookies, try these.
Ingredients
- 10 ounces room temperature high-fat butter, such as Kerrygold
- 1¼ cups (298 g) dark brown sugar
- ¾ cup (149g) granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt*
- 2 large eggs
- 1¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons (265g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 8 ounces chocolate chips
*It seems like a lot, but go for it…I even use salted butter, and the cookies are not too salty.
Instructions
- Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Combine the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla bean paste, and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until light, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and mix on medium speed until blended, about 2 minutes.
- Whisk the flour and baking soda together, then add to the dough, continuing to mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips. Using a spatula, quickly mix the dough, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Remove the bowl from the mixer. Portion the dough into balls weighing about 1 oz (28 g) each. For best results, store the dough balls in the fridge for at least 24 hours prior to baking and up to 1 week in advance.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Once heated, place the balls, about 4 inches apart, onto the parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until golden brown, 10–11 minutes. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.
- Category: Cookie
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: thin, chewy, chocolate, chip, cookies, dessert
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201 Comments on “Canal House Thin and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies”
I love this recipe! They come out exactly as I like them and no recipe has ever compared. I just have 1 question. Do you refrigerate each individual ball wrapped up or the whole bowl? What’s your process because I refrigerate the bowl and then just Scoop out the cold batter (returning the bowl to the refrigerator in between batches).
Thank you!
Meg Ryan
★★★★★
Hi Meg! I do like to portion out the batter and then refrigerate the pan of portioned balls in an airtight container. But there is no right way to do it! If you like your method, you do you 🙂 🙂 🙂
Hi, sorry for the late comment/question.. just came across your recipe today and was wondering if I would be able to substitute the butter w brown butter (melted).
(sorry if this has already been asked/answered)
Actually my bad one last question. If I wanted to add chopped walnuts to the recipe do I need to change the measurements for any of the other ingredients to accommodate the addition of the nuts?
No need to change the measurements of the other ingredients!
Hi Patrick! Sorry for the delay here. I have never tried brown butter here, but I would imagine it would work. Don’t skip the chilling-of-the-dough-balls step. Let me know if you give them a go!
2cups sugar?
want to use white sugar only,like you suggested? Ok ?
Hi Cindy! I think you can definitely use 2 cups of white sugar. Keep in mind, the high amount of brown sugar in this recipe will promote the chewiness in the final cookie. So if you use white sugar only, the cookies might be a little crisper.
I’ve searched far and wide for these cookies! They were crispy on the edges and chewy in the center. The texture was perfect. They were delicious. Thank you!!!!
★★★★★
So great to hear this, Jannie!
Cut the salt by 1/2, pretty good cookie.
★★★
These are by far the ugliest and most delicious cookies I’ve ever made. My mixer’s bowl is too small, so I did mix them by hand and see from your other replies previously that this may have been the cause of the spread I managed to get (a hilarious first batch is now “cookie bark”, heh). While mine don’t look like yours in that they’re flatter, even lacy with holes in some of them and very brown all over, they aren’t overcooked and retain a lot of chew with the faintest bit of crunch around the edge. Just how we like them! I’m eagerly waiting on feedback from the step-kids, but since we’ve been eating the less pretty ones (that’s really saying something!), I already know they’re awesome! I did use an entire 10oz. bag of chips/chunks, which I know changes the weight of my cookies. I found 20-21 grams made a nicer sized cookie taking my spread into account, baked for 8 minutes in case that helps anyone.
The yield was certainly a surprise; and I’m glad, because boy are these calorically dense! I just kept making more and more balls… Ultimately, I had 42 cookies I managed to bake, some at 28 grams, and several at 21 grams. I still have about 16 left in the freezer for later baking. Yes, this recipe made 58 cookies for me; that’s a lot of cookies! I’m glad I can inflict these on other people since it’s Christmas, otherwise I’d be in trouble. 😉
★★★★★
So great to hear all of this Gillian 🙂 🙂 🙂 I appreciate you sharing all of your notes, too — so helpful for others. And yay for having frozen cookie dough balls in the freezer. That is the BEST feeling. Happy happy holidays to you!