If you are a crunchy cookie aficionado, I have a special treat for you today. It’s an easy, butter-only (no shortening) recipe for a thin-to-medium-thickness chocolate chip cookie that is crunchy through and through. It’s adapted from a book I was reading at the store. I scanned the measurements, memorized them the best I could, then came home and typed up the ingredients from memory.
To make sure I had the measurements right, I searched the web for the recipe and found it in metric on a cute food blog, where the author gave the cookies good reviews. Here’s the recipe as I made it, with notes about the flour. If you have a scale, it’s best to weight the flour because it seems the recipe was developed by a scooper who gets about 5.2 oz flour per cup. Luckily, the original recipe had the weight listed along with the volume.
Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies
200 – 220 grams flour (weigh flour) — See note about volume
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment.
Sift or thoroughly whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and both sugars with an electric mixer; Add egg and vanilla and beat until egg is mixed in.
Add flour mixture and stir until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on the parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges start to brown. The baking powder prevents the cookies from browning quickly, so it seems the cookies can bake a longer time and becoming crunchier without burning or getting overly brown. I baked mine on an insulated cookie sheet, so if you notice your bottoms are browning too fast, switch to an insulated cookie sheet or stack you cookie sheet on top of another one to make your own insulated sheet.
NOTE: The book called for 1 1/3 cup flour and listed a gram amount of 220 grams, which is over 7 oz. This does not match up with 1 1/3 cups of flour, which would weigh only about 170 grams. Unless you scoop the flour with a really heavy hand, 1 1/3 cup will not weigh 220 grams.
For now, it’s best to just weigh out 200 to 220 grams of flour. For thinner cookies, use 200 grams. For thicker, use about 220. If you don’t have a scale, measure as follows:
Scoopers — 1 1/2 cups
Spoon & Sweepers — 1 2/3 cups measured carefully with no shaking
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Yours look a little thicker than mine. I like the look of the chocolate chips on the outside of the cookie.
The ones I made yesterday were slightly thinner too. I stuffed these with chips (1 1/3 cups) and they came out thicker.
Although I typically go for soft & chewy cookies, those crunchy chocolate chip ones look quite tempting!!
How about chilling the dough to make them a bit thicker? I agree about the chips… makes you want to reach into the screen to sneak a bite! PS I hope more “American” cookbooks start to come out with weights included!
Those look yummy!
Am I stupid, or is 220 grams actually 7.7 ounces?
These look very good. I’m probably going to make the Levain cookies soon. I forgot to watch the Throwdown episode! I’m so mad at myself. Okay, no more talking about Levain. Sorry.
I made a comment but think I didn’t save it… So here it goes again: I laughed about you memorizing the recipe from the book in the store. I do the same thing, I’m glad I’m not alone!
The cookies remind me of Maryland’s cookies, I think they’re british. Do you know them? Really crunchy ccc, I love them!
While my chewy cc cookies seem to be the most requested and I used to be a chewy fan, I have come to much prefer crispy cc cookies…these look great! I have not quite found the recipe to suit my tastes…I will have to give these a try!
Anonymous, you are right. 220 grams/28.4 = 7.7 oz.
I’ve been using 7 oz of flour, so if you are weighing in grams, use about 200 grams. I’m going to change it.
I need to go back and look at the book. I know it said 1 1/3 cup and am fairly certain it said 7 oz. So maybe the book’s measurements are off? I will check.
You could use 220 grams, I guess “Lick The Frosting” did and her cookies were fine — a little thicker than mine.
I used 7 oz.
I love crunchy cookies I wish I could eat some out of your photo they look amazing. Nice blog.
I’ve been using this recipe for quite some time. This one is my favorite so far. My dad likes um small (tablespoon sized) and crunchy. For regular sized they have the nice crunchy crunchy outside with a semi soft center, perfect. I also made giant cookies with this recipe. Up the temperature to 375F and chill the dough. The size of the dough I used was slightly less than a baseball. I just baked it until it was slightly brown and the cracks were not very shiny/raw looking. Perfect crunchy outside with a soft chewy inside.
I’ve searched for many recipes and stopped at this one!
when i made them they didnt turn out just like yours they were crispy on the out side and soft in the in side. but they did taste nice
I liked this recipe a lot, but what I’m finding is for crunchy/crispy cookies, the a little shortening really helps.
Hi Anna,
I found your blog by searching for this very recipe. I needed one to make and compare to Chips Ahoy and this was perfect. These cookies turned out excellent and I wouldn’t change a thing. My husband loves crunchy chocolate chip cookies and he only wants these from now on. Thanks for posting it!
Very yummy looking! I was looking for something sweet to make today, and I found it! Thanks!
yummy!!!!!!!!!!
i will try it
Thank you Anna for the wonderful recipe. I made 3 batches for my family & they love it so much. It stays crunchy the way we like our CCC. It doesn’t even turn out flat. I kept to 1 egg for a double batch & for the 3rd batch, i sub 1/2 cup cocoa powder with the flour added pecans and added more chips. Highly recommended recipe
hai anna so these cookie is crunchy as in famous amous crunchy? thanks
These were great! I made them last night and used 220 grams of flour and they were delicious!
How many cups is 220 grams of flour?
As mentioned in the note at the bottom, 1 1/2 cups for some people and 1 2/3 cups for others. It really depends on how you scoop your flour. If you don’t have a scale, my advice is to fluff up the flour in the canister, dip the measuring cup in carefully, then sweep the top flat. Do this with with a 1 cup measure and two 1/3 cups measure to measure 1 2/3 cup.
I made these last night, and let the dough sit in the fridge overnight. There were good, more like a Soft Batch cookie than say Chips-Ahoy. A bit crispy on the outside, with a little chew in the middle.
Ironically when measuring out the brown sugar there was a cookie recipe on the box, and low and behold it was this exact one. That was on a box of Dixie Crystals light brown sugar. Go figure.
I’d really like to find a recipe for a cookie like the Pepperidge Farms Chocolate Chunk Nantucket cookies. Something almost crumbly.
Hi Brian! Sorry the cookies didn’t come out crunchy. When I made them, they were pretty crunchy, so there’s some weird variable here that we haven’t discovered — maybe ovens or cookie sheets. If you want to try another crunchy recipe, look for the King Arthur crunchy recipe I posted. Or maybe I’ll just send it to you. Funny about Dixie Crystals. This recipe is from Williams Sonoma, but chances are they got it from Dixie.