25 Jun Chocolate Chip Cookie Legacy: The Toll House Way

Do you have a recipe or special dish that you’re known for? According to my kids, my mother is the grandma who makes the squares and my mother-in-law is referred to as the grandma who makes the muffins. My 9 year old son has already proclaimed that one day, I will be known as the grandma who makes the chocolate chip cookies.

I have been making a variation of the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe since I was a tween. By age 16 I knew the recipe by heart and also knew all the preferences of my family and close friends (a spoonful of unbaked batter with or without chips, extra soft cookies or crispy). A gift of cookies or frozen batter became my signature and has always been received with enthusiasm.

Recently a friend had me over for lunch. She reached for her recipe book stuffed with all manner of keepsake recipes and carefully pulled out the following note that I wrote to her when I was 16. We then reminisced about good times, many of which were in my parents’ kitchen making a batch – see what cookies can do?

Ingredients:

• Use your Processor on the metal blade or your Kitchen-Aid
• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
• Use baking sheets with parchment paper – not greased!
• 2 sticks of butter – from the fridge. NEVER put butter into the microwave to soften
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar – packed
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspon vanilla (and an extra splash!)
• 2 1/4 cups flour (I’ve started using whole wheat flour and it’s good!)
• As many chocolate chips as you can stand (usually 1/2 bag)

STEP 1

Beat the butter, sugars, baking soda and eggs. Then add the vanilla. Add the flour in batches. Do not over mix,. The batter should look sticky and thick. Stir in chocolate chips

STEP 2

Spoon batter onto baking sheets. I have a mini ice cream scoop that works great as a cookie batter scoop – these can be found at most kitchen good stores such as ARES.

STEP 3

Bake the cookies and check after 6 minutes. The top of the cookies should just be getting brown. Enjoy!

TIP 1: Pizza Cookie

Have a special occasion to mark? Nothing says yum like a giant cookie. Spray a pizza baking pan or skillet and then add about ¾ of the batter from the recipe above. Freeze the rest for cookies another time. Bake for 8 minutes and keep checking for how done you like your cookie. Careful – the batter will expand so do not use all the batter in this recipe or it will overflow and you will have to clean your oven.

TIP 2: Too Much of a Good Thing?

If a full batch of baked cookies has no place in your kitchen then invest in covered ice cube trays (Tupperware makes a great product!). Scoop out the batter into 2 trays and freeze. You can always pop out the frozen dough and transfer these to a Ziploc for later use and use your ice cube trays for actual ice. When baking your frozen dough, ensure to allow your dough to soften at room temperature for 10-15 minutes before baking.