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Toll House Cookies
Slightly revised, now with more notes to myself/tips. I've posted the recipe before of course. A long time ago.
Toll House Cookies
INGREDIENTS:
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 190° (according to the original recipe) or 200°C (as I do now, but I'm not sure it really makes a difference).
Beat butter with an electric mixer until it's smooth.
Add eggs and vanilla and beat well a few minutes until light and a touch fluffy. Then add the sugar (+ granulated vanilla sugar here if you're substituting) and beat until smooth (unless your vanilla sugar is powdered and not granulated, in which case, you can add it with the dry ingredients instead).
Add the salt and baking soda to the flour in a separate container and sift it together. Then add it gradually to the batter while beating. The original recipe calls for 5,2 dL flour, but 6 dL will give a firmer, denser cookie, more cake-like, like the ones I made yesterday (they also melt and spread less on the tray, but the texture isn't as good). Add the chocolate (chopped, or rather, diced) or M&M's and fold gently into the dough (ie, not with the beater). It takes some mixing to get the chocolate distributed by hand, though: otherwise when you get down to the last tray of cookies you'll have less chocolate in them. You can reserve a small bowlful of chopped chocolate pieces to add manually at that point, if desired.
Use a teaspoon (or tablespoon if desired) to measure the dough blobs onto the baking sheets, 9-12 per sheet, not too close together (leave 3-5 cm or so in between). Dip your clean fingers in warm water to shape each cookie more or less into a ball and press the top gently to flatten it a bit, but don't actually flatten them out into discs ideally, or they may spread too much during baking.
Bake for 5-8 minutes, checking carefully (check after 5 if they're small, but they generally take at least 6), until risen and darkened to golden brown on the edges but still pale and puffy in the center. (When they deflate again, or turn completely brown, that's bad. But if you take them out before the gold moves in from the edges, they'll fall when they cool because of not being completely cooked in the middle.) If you re-use the baking sheets, don't put the cookies on hot sheets - it makes them melt prematurely - but cool the sheets under cold running water before putting the next batch on them. Cool on racks.
It's fully possible to make 2 batches at a time in one mixer bowl if you have a standing mixer, but it does make the mixing a bit difficult. In that case, be sure you have plenty of baking trays!
FINAL TIP: These cookies taste at least twice as good when still warm from the oven, but give them a few minutes or they'll fall apart when you try to pick them up!
Toll House Cookies
INGREDIENTS:
200 g softened salted butter. TIP: Let it sit at room temperature until it's as soft as possible. Don't melt it with applied heat: if it's liquidified, the cookies will come out with a different texture! On the other hand though, it can be a good idea to remove a small portion of it - a quarter or less - and melt in the microwave or stovetop over low heat until it's liquid but not burnt - the chemical change adds a slight caramel hint to the flavor of the cookies (this tip courtesy of Cook's Illustrated). TIP #2: I sometimes find the dough a little too oily. Using not quite all the butter helps with that, as in, if you buy a 200g packet, when you tip the butter out of it into the mixer bowl, don't use the blobs that stay stuck to the paper. Or, if you're working from a 600g block, shave off the last quarter cm or so from the end before you set it out to warm up.
2 eggs
1,8 dL brown sugar
1,8 dL granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon liquid vanilla extract (TIP: you can substitute 1 tsp vanilla sugar, but remember, it's vitally important that you use genuine vanilla extract and not artificial/vanillin)
5,2 - 6 dL all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt (sea salt is best, but ideally fine, not coarse) TIP: Measure the salt generously. Even up to twice as much is good, because the dough is so sweet.
1 teaspoon baking soda
400 grams semi-sweet chocolate in a bar or 2 packets of Fazer CRUSH baking chocolate pieces (I used CRUSH last time, but intend to go back to the bars because I like the cookies better with larger chocolate chunks. It's wonderful to take a bite and suddenly sink your teeth into a palpably soft reservoir of melted chocolate in the middle of a cookie!) TIP: I prefer to use a little less than this amount of chocolate personally, but use the whole amount for parties: most people love it. TIP #2: You can also make the exact same recipe but substitute crushed walnuts/pecans/other nuts for half the chocolate, or, my favorite - use a bag of plain M&Ms instead of the chocolate pieces.
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 190° (according to the original recipe) or 200°C (as I do now, but I'm not sure it really makes a difference).
Beat butter with an electric mixer until it's smooth.
Add eggs and vanilla and beat well a few minutes until light and a touch fluffy. Then add the sugar (+ granulated vanilla sugar here if you're substituting) and beat until smooth (unless your vanilla sugar is powdered and not granulated, in which case, you can add it with the dry ingredients instead).
Add the salt and baking soda to the flour in a separate container and sift it together. Then add it gradually to the batter while beating. The original recipe calls for 5,2 dL flour, but 6 dL will give a firmer, denser cookie, more cake-like, like the ones I made yesterday (they also melt and spread less on the tray, but the texture isn't as good). Add the chocolate (chopped, or rather, diced) or M&M's and fold gently into the dough (ie, not with the beater). It takes some mixing to get the chocolate distributed by hand, though: otherwise when you get down to the last tray of cookies you'll have less chocolate in them. You can reserve a small bowlful of chopped chocolate pieces to add manually at that point, if desired.
Use a teaspoon (or tablespoon if desired) to measure the dough blobs onto the baking sheets, 9-12 per sheet, not too close together (leave 3-5 cm or so in between). Dip your clean fingers in warm water to shape each cookie more or less into a ball and press the top gently to flatten it a bit, but don't actually flatten them out into discs ideally, or they may spread too much during baking.
Bake for 5-8 minutes, checking carefully (check after 5 if they're small, but they generally take at least 6), until risen and darkened to golden brown on the edges but still pale and puffy in the center. (When they deflate again, or turn completely brown, that's bad. But if you take them out before the gold moves in from the edges, they'll fall when they cool because of not being completely cooked in the middle.) If you re-use the baking sheets, don't put the cookies on hot sheets - it makes them melt prematurely - but cool the sheets under cold running water before putting the next batch on them. Cool on racks.
It's fully possible to make 2 batches at a time in one mixer bowl if you have a standing mixer, but it does make the mixing a bit difficult. In that case, be sure you have plenty of baking trays!
FINAL TIP: These cookies taste at least twice as good when still warm from the oven, but give them a few minutes or they'll fall apart when you try to pick them up!