Toll House Cookies

I’d planned on going all out with a recipe accompanied by photos but I haven’t started my Christmas baking yet because I’m still working on the Christmas shopping part. I did buy lots of chocolate chips, so at least that’s a start.

What I’d like to share is a chocolate chip cookie technique that a woman I know ran across by accident. We’ll start with a typical toll house cookie recipe:

Toll House Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) Fleischmann’s margarine *
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-ounce package) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans

Melt the margarine, granulated sugar and brown sugar together in a small pot. Allow mixture to cool completely before proceeding. Once the mixture is cool add the vanilla.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees while you’re waiting on your butter/sugar mix to cool.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Add your cooled butter/sugar mixture to a large bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. This mixture will be gooey so don’t worry. Drop by rounded tablespoonfulls onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for two minutes then move to wire racks to cool completely.

These cookies come out chewey, moist and glossy-looking.

A little tip: You can substitute white chocolate chips for the chocolate chips and macadamia nuts for the pecans and these are equally as yummy.

Another little tip: Parchment paper is worth it’s weight in gold. Besides the fact that it makes clean-up a breeze it’s also wonderful because you can load up sheets of parchment paper with your cookie dough and as the cookies come out of the oven you just slide off one loaded sheet and replace it with another. Very cool. I know a lot of people are using silpat but you have to wash those. Unnecessary washing is the devil.

* Don’t substitute anything for the Fleischmann’s margarine because it won’t work as well. Real butter will do in a pinch, but the result just isn’t the same.