This is one of my most requested cookies. People just love a good chocolate chip cookie! My recipe is based on the original Toll House recipe with a few tweaks for my personal preference. Basically, these cookies have a tad too much vanilla, salt, and chocolate (not in the recipe: I often throw in extra chips in different sizes depending on what I’ve got partial bags of lying around). Also, I use all light brown sugar and butter for a particular texture and chew. That’s it, I think …
Oh, here’s a freebie: this dough is the base for over half of the cookies I bake. I just change up the chips and extract flavor, and add fruit and nuts as desired. Occasionally I add some dried spices for a particular flavor profile (my date pecan cookies love some ground cardamom in ’em). A few options I have been known to make using this dough recipe as a base include:
- Chocolate chip-raisin-walnut
- White chip-cranberry-pecan
- Date-pecan-toffee bit
Experiment! Enjoy!
TMc’s Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 16 TBSP Unsalted butter (2 sticks – softened)
- 1-1/2 cups Light brown sugar
- 2 Large eggs
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 tsp Kosher salt (plus a pinch)
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 2-1/2 cups All-purpose flour
- 2 cups Chocolate chips (10-oz bag is about this much, I use Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips as a rule)
- 1 cup Chopped nuts of choice (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Stir flour, salt and baking soda together in a small bowl with a fork
- Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy
- Add eggs and extract and mix well
- Add dry ingredients and mix well
- Add chips (and nuts if used) and mix just until incorporated
- Scoop out dough and place scoops flat side down on parchment paper on baking sheets – no more than 12 per standard cookie sheet
- Bake for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees until cookies are golden brown
- Slide parchment with cookies onto cooling racks
- Let cool completely before bagging or containerizing
Notes
- 1 stick (8 TBSP) butter + 1 large egg + everything else in the base recipe halved yields approximately 2 dozen cookies
- 3 sticks (24 TBSP) butter + 3 large eggs + everything else in the base recipe times 1.5 yields approximately 6 dozen cookies
- …and so on.