Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you know me, chances are you've had one of my mom's chocolate chip cookies.

They're a pretty big deal.

She's baked them for as long as I can remember. For seven years, she baked a double batch for every field hockey game and fencing meet I ever had, and she did the same for my brothers cross country running races, ski races and crew meets. They were always in tins lined with doilies, wrapped in layer upon layer of saran wrap then tied up with a ribbon in our school color.

Everyone who comes to work at our home, be it carpenter, painter, or electrician, is baked a batch of these cookies. If she's going out and knows the lawn man is coming to cut the lawn, she leaves a plate of cookies (doily and all) on the front steps for him and his crew to enjoy.

Visitors are sent off with a package to sustain them on their journey home. They appear in care packages, potluck dinners and any other occasion calling for cookie consumption. If they don't appear for some worthy reason, people want to know where the cookies went. Everyone wants them.

They're famous.

What's the secret?

Follow the recipe straight from the back of the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip bag. Use egg beaters instead of a real egg, and don't try to round out the dough when you place it on the cookie sheet. Leave it lumpy. It's as simple as that.


Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe from the Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate morsel bag.

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg - or 1/2 egg beater
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

2. In the bowl an an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar on high until well mixed. Add the egg and vanilla and beat just until incorporated.

3. Sift the flour, baking soda and salt together, then add to the butter mixture gradually. Mix on low speed just until the flour is combined with the butter. Stir in the chocolate chips.


4. Drop the dough by rounded teaspoons onto an ungreased baking sheet, but don't smooth out the dough. Bake for roughly 11 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown. Place the cookies onto a wire rack to cool.



I had the pleasure of enjoying a few this afternoon (left over from baking for our electrician). It's been a good year since I've had any, and they were just as delicious as ever. I'm glad some things never change.