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
Print Recipe
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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 (298g) 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
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. 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.
- 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
![In the March 2009 issue of Gourmet, Ruth Reichl describes this warm sesame tofu as: “a beautiful dish, which takes ten minutes, costs very little, and is so utterly delicious”.It truly is. The method calls for simmering tofu in water, making a simple sesame-scallion sauce, and pouring the sauce over the warm tofu, which gets custard-like in texture during its warm water bath. Over a decade later, I still have that issue of Gourmet (hoarder), I’m still making the tofu, and it’s still one of my favorite ways to eat it. So simple and good. 💯Recipe linked in bio, how-to in stories 🤗[alexandracooks.com]#ruthreichl @ruthreichl 💗](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAA+gAAAIwAQMAAAAvd9NRAAAAA1BMVEX///+nxBvIAAAAaElEQVR42uzBgQAAAACAoP2pF6kCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOD24JAAAAAAQND/186wAAAAAAAAAAAAAKsAE68AAcs4QCMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=)
Moira says
Just made these today as my husband asked for thin, crispy, chocolate chip cookies, light on the chocolate chips. First batch spread super fast and they came out very thin, and fragile. I decided that maybe the dough needed to be chilled but read other comments that chilling made no difference. I found that hard to believe entirely. So I added more flour a tablespoon at a time til I got a consistency I liked ( about 4 tablespoons) then chilled the dough. Baked off six to try and kept dough in fridge in bewteen batches. They are perfect and exactly what my husband was looking for. THANKS!
★★★★★
alexandra says
So happy to hear this, Moira!
Darci Stockman says
I have been looking for the perfect thin, chewy yet crispy chocolate chip cookie recipe and THIS IS IT. I have tried about 4 other recipes and none really delivered what I wanted. This recipe did. It is perfection.
★★★★★
Alyssa says
These are the perfect cookies. This is the perfect recipe! Very glad with how they turned out. I added some pecans to them and they cooked perfectly. The dough does not need to be chilled.
★★★★★
alexandra says
So happy to hear this, Alyssa!!
Matt says
I love that you gave the dry ingredient measurements in weight (g)! When it come to baking precise measurements are key to duplication! I wish every recipe did this!
alexandra says
Me, too, Matt! I LOVE when recipes are written by weight.
Nicole says
Oh my gosh. New favorite chocolate chip cookie. I basically try a new recipe each time I make chocolate chip cookies because I’m always on the hunt for the best cookie. No more. These are game changers! Thank you 😩😬😍😂
★★★★★
alexandra says
Yay! So happy to hear this, Nicole!!
Hana says
Does this recipe call for room temp butter or melted butter? They look amazing!
alexandra says
room temperature 🙂
Ellen Morris says
Found my new chocolate chip cookie awesomeness
★★★★★
alexandra says
Yay!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Smell says
How many cookies do you put on a pan at a time?
★★★★★
alexandra says
Six! Sorry for the delay here 🙂
Karen Hoyt says
Worst recipe ever! I measured the ingredients in grams, refrigerated it for 12 hours and they slid off the cookie sheet onto the oven floor.
Ashley says
I’m so confused how flat cookies would somehow slide off a flat baking sheet onto the oven floor… this sounds more like a bakers error more than a recipe error.
alexandra says
Same 🙂 🙂 🙂
A says
Hello the 10 oz of butter seems like an awful lot – is that more than 2 sticks of butter? My one stick says 4 oz so 10 oz must be over 2 sticks? Wanted to double check.
alexandra says
That’s accurate!
ALICE says
We absolutely love this recipe. Been looking for a cookie recipe like this for years. Loved it so much we just ordered the cook book so we will always have it. Thank you so much for sharing
★★★★★
alexandra says
So happy to hear this, Alice!! You’ll love the book … it’s one of those I could curl up to for hours 🙂
Liz says
Hi, I’m trying this recipe, but something’s not computing for me. Why is 1 1/4 cup brown sugar 298 grams, when the flour measurement in cups is so much more but less grams? When I look up conversion charts from cups to grams, the 298 doesn’t make sense to me.
Thanks!
alexandra says
Hi Liz! It’s because flour is so much lighter than sugar. So, one 1 cup of flour weighs between 120 and 128 g or so. But 1 cup of brown sugar weighs about 200 g. Does that make sense?
liz says
Yes, thank you so much for the quick reply! I made these and my family loves them. My new go to recipe! Happy New Year!
★★★★★
alexandra says
So happy to hear this, Liz! Happy happy 2020 to you!