This was my go-to recipe for chocolate chip cookies from the very beginning. I guess you could say it was where my love of baking really began. I'd spent a lot of time leafing through our cookie cookbook searching for the next great thing to make (if only I had known about food blogs then), but I always seemed to find my way back to page 92, nine times out of ten. Even though I haven't made these in probably a year, I did not forget page 92 when I opened up the book this time. I made this recipe for years almost exclusively before I ever knew what a food blog was. Then I kinda got bored of it (too much of a good thing) and started to search elsewhere for a good recipe. Until discovering food blogs I never found one that I liked as much. Since beginning this blog (and getting my KA mixer) I haven't made these cookies. I made other ones and a few recipes I swore hands down were better. More flavour, more chewy, you get the picture. Well I take it all back. Ever since getting our new oven, the two recipes that as of late I would say were the best cookies really haven't been cooking up well. So I decided to go back to my good old faithful Toll House recipe, a recipe I have yet to make in my mixer. Actually I think I tried making this in my first mixer (the one that broke and was way, way, way too small for me), but I don't count that because the mixer didn't get to work it's magic on the ingredients. But my new mixer...I'll say it again, you never know what creaming butter and sugar truly means until you make cookies in a stand mixer. The hand held mixer just doesn't even come close.
So back to the results of the cookies. They were amazing. I ate some warm and they were the gooiest things I'd ever eaten, they fell apart in my hands. But the dough before baking was amazing. It was silky and light and fluffy (basically whipped is the word to describe it), instead of thick and chunky like my other recipes have been, probably due to their being quite a bit more butter and eggs in this recipe than others (and you bake at 375 vs. 350 so really it is a significant difference from other recipes). So the end result was that these cookies probably tasted close to the same as the recipe I remembered but the texture was so much better. I feel like I've found a whole new cookie recipe. The only think about these cookies was they went pretty flat and almost concave (something I've never really experience with this recipe or other cookie recipes seeing as I usually opt for a chewy and thick cookie recipe), and typically I associate flat cookies with crispy cookies. But as long as you watch your baking time (for my liking, 8 minutes and not a second more was perfect), these cookies are anything but crispy. When the family bit into the first cookie it was asked what recipe it was. When I responded they said they could tell. I guess there's nothing like the original chocolate chip cookie recipe.
One final interesting thing. I was just searching this recipe online (as I got my copy from one of the only recipe books I refer back to time and time again), and found that I really cut back on the chocolate. The recipe in my book is identical to the one on the Nestle website, except mine calls for 1 pkg of Nestle chips and the web version calls for 2 cups. I didn't really know how many cups was in a package so I started by the half cup full and counted up and it looked good at 1 1/2 cups. But I can see why they called for 2. Some of my cookies were amazingly chocolate-filled and others had very little (simply because I had made a double batch and my mixer was pretty close to capacity and wasn't distributing the chocolate quite as well as it should have), so take your pick on the amount of chocolate. 1 1/2 may be enough if you're just making a single batch and you can mix the chocolate in evenly.
Recipe is the Original Nestle Toll House Recipe, from Cookies! A Cookie Lover's Collection.
Makes 4 1/2 dozen medium-large cookies (it's a much larger recipe than other recipes out there).
Can you tell how light and fluffy it is?
Ingredients
1 C. Butter, softened
3/4 C. White Sugar
3/4 C. Brown Sugar
1 Tsp. Vanilla
2 Eggs
2 1/4 C. Flour
1 Tsp. Baking Soda
1 Tsp. Salt
1 1/2 - 2 C. Chocolate Chips
1 C. Chopped Nuts (optional - I've never put these in)
Directions
~Preheat oven to 375
~In a large mixing bowl cream butter, sugars and vanilla. Add in the egg and mix.~Mix in flour, soda and salt until light and fluffy.
~Stir in chips and nuts if desired.
~Using two spoons, scoop onto cookie sheets (handle as little as possible with your hands, it doesn't matter what the dough looks like on the pan - it doesn't have to be a perfectly shaped ball)
~Bake for 8-9 minutes or until edges are golden and centre still is white and soft.
Enjoy (warm)!
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