Tate's Bake Shop Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tate's Bake Shop Chocolate Chip Cookies are thin and crispy, and absolutely delicious. Even if you prefer soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies, you'll find it hard to resist these buttery cookies filled with yummy chocolate chips and toasted pecans.

Watch How to Make These Delicious Cookies

Jump to:

• Watch How to Make These Delicious Cookies
• Quick Look at the Recipe
• The Search for the Perfect Recipe
• Ingredients: Here's What You'll Need
• Deviations from the Tate's Bake Shop Recipe
• Steps: Making the Dough for Half the Recipe
• Finishing the Tate's Bake Shop Chocolate Chip Cookies
• In Cases You Were Wondering
• PudgeFactor's Test Kitchen Tips
• Other Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes
• Recipe

Quick Look at the Recipe

What it is: Thin, crisp, buttery chocolate chip cookies inspired by Tate's Bake Shop, with toasted pecans added for extra flavor and crunch.

Prep time: 10 minutes

Bake time: 12 minutes per batch

Oven temperature: 350°F

Yield: About 6 dozen cookies

Key technique: Flatten the scooped dough to about ⅜-inch thick before baking. This gives the cookies the head start they need to spread into that characteristic thin, crispy shape.

Make a half-batch: The recipe works especially well as a half-batch, yielding about 3 dozen cookies (half-batch recipe below).

Storage: Keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week

The Search for the Perfect Recipe

I had never heard of Tate's Chocolate Chip Cookies until recently. I happened to see them at the local Walmart, so bought a package. One bite and I knew that the hype surrounding the cookies was correct - they were really good!

I decided that I had to try my hand at making these delicious cookies. Therefore, I started by searching the Internet for recipes. I found two recipes that looked promising: (1) the Tate's Bake Shop recipe; and (2) a Tate's-Style Thin and Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe.

I initially tried the Tate's Bake Shop recipe but must have done something wrong. The cookies were good, but they weren't thin and crispy.

Then, I tried the Tate's Style recipe. Again, I must have done something wrong. The cookies were thin and crispy but were incredibly greasy.

Not to be deterred, I tried the Tate's Bake Shop recipe again - this time using half the recipe. As I'll explain in a bit, I ultimately ended up with amazingly thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies.

I asked the Master Taste Tester to do a side-by-side comparison of the store-bought cookies and mine. His conclusion was that they basically tasted the same, except that mine had more chocolate chips! Therefore, a success story! Read on to see what I did.

Ingredients: Here's What You'll Need

The ingredients used in this recipe are pretty standard for a chocolate chip cookie.

• Butter: Generally, I use unsalted butter in my recipes. However, with the above success, I decided to use salted butter that was included in the Tate's Bake Shop recipe.

• Sugars: I used both granulated sugar and dark brown sugar in this recipe.

• Flour Plus: I used all-purpose flour with table salt and baking soda added.

• Egg: I included an egg which helped to bind the ingredients together.

• The Flavorings: To add flavor and texture to the cookies, I used vanilla extract, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and toasted pecans.

Deviations from the Tate's Bake Shop Recipe

I actually deviated from the original recipe in three respects.

First, the original recipe called for a teaspoon of water and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. I omitted the water and instead added two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Second, the original recipe did not call for any nuts. However, I can't imagine chocolate chip cookies without toasted pecans. Therefore, I added the pecans.

Finally, the original recipe called for stirring together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Sometime back, I started adding salt and baking soda to the "wet" ingredients right before adding the flour. My rationale was that the salt and baking soda would be better combined by beating them into the "wet" ingredients. This has consistently worked for me!

I used Gold Medal flour bleached all-purpose flour (blue). The reason was that I had read that the lower protein content of the Gold Medal flour produced lighter and crispier cookies. I've also used White Lily bleached all-purpose flour.

I generally use unsalted butter for all of my baking. However, I made a special trip to the store to buy some salted butter which was called for in the recipe. Subsequently, I used unsalted butter and increased the amount of salt by ¼ teaspoon.

Steps: Making the Dough for Half the Recipe

1. First, I creamed together the butter, granulated sugar, and dark brown sugar on medium speed. I beat the mixture for only a minute, until it came together. Beating incorporates air into the dough, which in turn produces a puffy cookie. Since I didn't want puffy cookies, I beat it as little as possible.

2. Next, I added the egg and vanilla extract. I beat the mixture on medium speed for about 30 seconds, just until the egg and vanilla were incorporated. Again, I didn't want to introduce too much air.

3. After that, I added the salt and baking soda. I beat the mixture on medium speed just until the salt and baking soda were incorporated, about 30 seconds.

4. Then, I added the flour. I beat the mixture on low speed just until most of the flour was incorporated into the dough. This took about 30 seconds.

5. Finally, I folded in chocolate chips and toasted pecans. I was careful not to over-mix the dough.

Finishing the Tate's Bake Shop Chocolate Chip Cookies

I used my smallest cookie scoop to drop the cookies onto a silicone-lined baking sheet. This cookie scoop measured 1-¼ inches in diameter.

I baked the first sheet of cookies in a preheated 350°F oven for 12 minutes and was dismayed to find they looked more like regular chocolate chip cookies than thin, crispy ones.

Therefore, for the second cookie sheet, I wet my hands and pressed the cookie dough to about ⅜-inch thick. This way, the cookies had a head start in spreading.

I baked this sheet of cookies at 350°F for 12 minutes. Perfection!

The picture below shows the difference between the cookies when the dough was not flattened (cookies on the right) versus the cookies when the dough was flattened (cookies on the left).

Therefore, one secret to achieving thin, crispy cookies seems to be giving them a head start by flattening them before baking.

The picture below compares the store-bought Tate's Bake Shop Chocolate Chip cookies on the left with my cookies on the right. The store-bought cookies were about 2-½ inches in diameter. My cookies were between 2-½ and 2 ¾ inches in diameter!

As I previously indicated, I made half a recipe. I ended up with three dozen amazing, thin, and crispy chocolate chip cookies studded with toasted pecans.

The full recipe below would have produced six dozen cookies! All I can say is that these cookies are awesome! Yum!

In Cases You Were Wondering

Other Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes

If you like chocolate chip cookies, you should also try the following cookies:

Recipe