The first recipe that I ever had memorized was for Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. I am not sure when I made my first batch solo, but I do remember coming home with friends after school many days and baking these cookies wherever we were. To me, there is nothing quite like a warm chocolate chip cookie.

The Great Chocolate Chip Cookie

Over the years I have tried many different recipes and variations on chocolate chip cookies. I must have dozens clipped in a file or pinned on my Pinterest board. I know I am not alone in trying to find THE perfect recipe.

Follow Kat MacArthur’s board Chocolate Chip Cookies on Pinterest.

I have seen a few different posts recently with very scientific approaches to how to bake the best chocolate chip cookie. Handle the Heat has a series of four posts using the Toll House recipe as a control recipe and then varying it slightly. The Food Lab on Serious Eats also did a series of experiments to learn about “The Science of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies”. There is even someone who posted a YouTube video featuring the “Cookie Perfection Machine”, a machine built to allow this man to experiment with small batches of different recipes in his search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Though I will not be building any machines, I am starting a series of posts about my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

What is the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie?

Over the next few months I will be posting and evaluating different recipes for chocolate chip cookies. Part of the inspiration for this series came from a recent article in The Boston Globe, “How Toll House recipe became a cookie-jar staple”, that describes the origins of the famed classic from Whitman, Massachusetts. This article also alerted me to a book that I was so excited about that we gave a copy away! Carolyn Wyman’s The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book is part cookbook, part food history, and part travel guide. It is a lot of fun and we were delighted to share a copy with our lucky winner – CONGRATS!

Nestle Toll House Cookies Recipe

The Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie

To kick off my series of recipes, I begin with the classic, the recipe to which I always seem to return. The Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is easy to put together and always reliable. The cookies are generally a bit puffy, crisp on the outer edge, and chewy in the center. They are a good balance of the buttery caramel and chocolate flavors most chocolate chip cookies have. I made the recipe as printed on the back of the package of chocolate chips, but generally I prefer to use one full cup of brown sugar and one-half cup of white sugar to enhance the caramel flavor. No matter how you make them, these are always a treat.

The Great Chocolate Chip Cookie
5 from 1 vote
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Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is the recipe that became an American classic, the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie by Ruth Wakefield.

Course:  Dessert
Prep Time:  15 minutes
Cook Time:  30 minutes
Total Time:  45 minutes
Servings:  5 dozen

Ingredients

  • cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup butter softened
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups chocolate chips (12-ounce package)
  • 1 cup nuts chopped, optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
  3. Cream butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla in mixer.
  4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  5. Gradually mix in flour mixture.
  6. Stir in chocolate chips (and nuts) by hand.
  7. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
  8. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golde
  9. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Recipe Notes

This recipe was very slightly adapted from the original. I never put nuts in my chocolate chip cookies (to my father's displeasure) and have listed them as optional here. For a more chewy and caramel-flavored cookie, increase the brown sugar to one cup and decrease the granulated sugar to one-half cup.