Food You Can Eat: Plain Ol’ Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4/20 MegMegMcGee 16

You don’t mess with the classics.
I know this recipe by heart so I never even have to look at it. I hardly ever deviate because when I do experiment they just aren’t as good. I will throw in a few tips below though.
A lot of times I’ll halve the sugar because Mr. McGee is a Type 1 diabetic. But if he’s not home I’m all in on the sugar.
Even though I am a very experienced home cook and certificated French pastry chef (#funfact), I know that there’s nothing better than cookies that taste like your mom used to make.

Nestle® Toll House® Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1 (12-ounce) package (2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts

  1. Heat oven to 375°F.
  2. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl. Set aside.
  3. Combine butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla at high speed in large bowl. Beat, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed after each addition. Stir in chips and nuts.
  4. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheets; remove to cooling rack. Cool completely.

Pro-tips:
I use unsalted butter for everything except toast. I also tend to grind a bit of salt over my cookies before popping them into the oven.

I use dark brown sugar which I think gives more depth and molasses-y flavor.

If I use nuts, I toast them in the over for a few minutes (then cool) before adding to my dough.

Cookies continue baking once they are out of the oven; take them out when they are few shades lighter than you think they should be.

Whenever you bake something with chocolate (brownies, cookies, cake), once you smell the chocolate in the air you’ve over-baked it. Check immediately!

Enjoy!

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16 Comments

  1. I started doing the bon appetit chocolate chip cookies, which changes ratio of brown to white sugar and calls for you to brown the butter before mixing it. It also wants one whole egg and two egg yolks, but I usually do just three yolks otherwise the cookies spread too much. If the dough is too dry without the egg white I’ll add some milk to get it to combine.

  2. My pro-tip – mix them by hand. Some article I read ages ago said to do that and it makes a difference. I don’t know why.

    I cannot stress the taking cookies out early enough. I wait until they are cooked enough that when I poke them with my finger, no dough sticks to it, but they still feel weet and spongy.

    My grandmother makes a version with all white sugar – they are really pale – they taste different but I like them.

  3. What do you think about adding powdered milk to your cookie dough? I read once that Christina Tosi recommends 1 TBS to all your cookie dough. I’ve tried it and I can’t see any difference.
    I was thinking of making Toll House cookies this weekend. I came across a bag of chips in the pantry and I’m trying to use stuff I’ve got lying around.

      • I bake quite a bit, but ironically now less than ever despite having far more free time than ever. I do it because I can and I always make way too much. I would offload my surplus to neighbors, our building workers, I’d bring it to parties or serve them at my own, bring stuff into an office if I were ever scheduled to go into one…none of that is possible right now, obviously.

        On a happier note, and I did not know you were a pastry chef!, have you ever cheated and used a box cake mix to sub in for a recipe that requires something cake-y? Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines, Pillsbury, they’re all perfectly acceptable and extremely adaptable, if a little artificial. They’ve been around for decades, they should be.

        Whenever I get to a recipe that involves making a batter as part of something more elaborate I always think, “This sounds like it could be greatly simplified by using [a little boxed lemon cake mix, for example].” I normally try to avoid this but if I don’t have the time nor the ingredients on hand I turn to them and they’ve never failed me.

        • Honestly if I’m making stuff for little kids it’s coming right out of a box lol.
          Also, who has the damn time (usually)!?
          Costco has Ghirardelli brownie mix that is just delicious. I can be a snob about somethings, but boxed cake mix is not one of them.
          Do not hand me a $3 macaron with a huge air bubble in it though. 🙂

          • I came by my love of box cake mixes honestly and in a very strange way. My mother used to make them all the time, but she knew how to do it from scratch.

            Armed with a recipe for Victoria Sponge (I lived in Europe for a while, a longer time than I should have, and visited Britain often) when I got my first apartment I was determined to make one myself, because I loved the name so much. The recipe was very British and kind of hard to understand, so I called my mother. She said, “It sounds like you’re making a double-layer pound cake with a filling of raspberry jam and whipped cream. Then, you sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Forget about the flour and the eggs and the baking soda, go to the grocery store and buy a boxed pound cake mix, or better yet go to the bakery and just buy a pound cake, slice it in half, layer in some raspberry jam and some whipped cream, and sprinkle powdered sugar on top.”

            But I was a junior Mary Berry-in-training so I got the box mix, the two cake tins, the densest raspberry jam they had, and whipped my own cream. It came out perfectly, and my boyfriend/now husband and our guests were astonished.

            The only thing I love more than feeding myself is feeding other people. Here in Lockdown Central we’re getting creative. We have yet more chicken pineapple sausage. Impulse buy on my husband’s part. Not hoarding, it was there, and he figured no one else was buying it so why shouldn’t he? I’d know how to do something with it.

            He was wondering what kind of pasta would go with it and what kind of sauce? “Oh no,” I said, “this calls for a ‘Taste of the Orient.'” [Heavy sarcasm there.]

            So, the chicken pineapple sausages are almost defrosted and I’m going to make some white rice, dice up the sausages in a big skillet, throw in tons of garlic, a diced onion, a green pepper. Then, once it’s in its bowls, I’m going to put out soy sauce and some Japanese hot mustard that we can add individually. My husband and I have very different tolerances of spicy heat in food, and long ago I was forbidden from marinating meat. This is our compromise.

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