Secrets of really good chocolate
Source of Recipe
Nestle Toll House Morsels article
Recipe Introduction
Secrets of really good chocolate chip cookies
List of Ingredients
The recipe on the back of the Nestle Toll House Morsels [tm] bag makes fine cookies, and if you were to follow it precisely, you couldn't go too far wrong. However, based upon my own experience and that of others, I advise a few minor modifications and refinements.
First, always use real butter. Don't let anyone convince you that butter vs. margarine doesn't make any difference. It does.
Second, TRIPLE the amount of vanilla extract recommended. This means to use a tablespoon where a teaspoon is specified. Also, always use real vanilla extract and not "vanillin," which is bogus, although cheaper, and sold next to the genuine article in many grocery stores. Feh.
Third, and this can make a big difference, don't just let the butter sit out at room temperature to become soft. Instead, melt it, very carefully, so that it doesn't burn (you can use a double boiler -- if anyone out there still has one! -- or else a microwave oven that is set very low and which you are watching like a hawk). A microwave can burn the butter in a second if you turn your back at an inopportune moment. (Use a Pyrex or other microwave-safe transparent container if you do this, so you can watch the butter closely.) Melted butter, because it is both warm and liquid, does a much better job of dissolving and melting the sugar than a room-temperature creamed butter can do, improving the consistency of the dough as you are working with it, and also improving the texture of the cookies after they are baked. My friend Lizabeth says that she gets much better results using melted butter and superfine granulated sugar, and I believe her; however, I have never had a problem with the texture of cookies made with ordinary granulated sugar.
a slice of white bread, placed into the sealed plastic bag with the brown sugar, will soften it within a day.
Fourth, add a little milk, maybe just a tablespoon or two, when you are mixing the dough. This will make it less stiff and the cookies will be less hard and crunchy when they are done. If you do this, though, make sure the dough is nice and cold as you drop it onto the cookie sheet, and also make sure the cookie sheet is room temperature or cooler when you put the dough on it and put it into the oven. If the dough melts around the edges before it starts to bake, sometimes the edges will burn or get too brown.
Fifth, if you like, try leaving out part of the sugar. I find sometimes that these cookies are easier to take if even 1/8 cup (two tablespoons) of the sugar (white or brown) is omitted. Don't leave out more than that though.
Recipe
If you like, try adding a 10 ounce bag of Reese's peanut butter chips, along with the chocolate chips. This makes a great cookie, but if you do this it is probably best to omit the nuts. Or, try adding a bag of butterscotch chips and substituting oatmeal for the nuts.
you can add a package of instant vanilla pudding mix. it makes sense for a lot of reasons.
You can also experiment with untraditional mixes of white and brown sugar until you achieve the version you like best. In addition, although I have not yet tried this myself, I am told that it is possible to substitute honey on a one-to-one basis for the brown sugar, resulting in nice chewy cookies with a longer shelf life. I recently found someone who likes to use almond extract in equal parts with vanilla, and who also tells me that the honey trick didn't work for her. But she does recommend substituting bran for a small part of the flour (I would make it not more than a tablespoon or two) to make the cookies chewier. She sometimes adds cinnamon "to taste," (I'd say, not more than a teaspoon total, and perhaps less) and observes that stirring chopped-up Heath bars into the dough can create a great cookie. (She didn't say this specifically, but I'd advise against using the cinnamon and Heath bars in the same batch.)
Note that Toll House dough, without chips but with a fair amount of cinnamon, might be a nice variation on the traditional American cookie called the "snickerdoodle."
A friend in Canada urges that real maple syrup (emphasis on the real; no Mrs. Butterworth's, please!) also makes a fine substitute for the brown sugar. (I think I'd also advise against using Heath bars and maple syrup together; maple syrup and cinnamon might be OK.)
you can always add a "dollop" of sour cream . it improves the texture of the cookies, making them chewier and increasing their shelf life. the sour cream can't be tasted, sour cream assimilates well into other foods, and these cookies have enough other strong flavors in them that some sour cream shouldn't be noticeable. The $64K question, of course, is: how much is a dollop? I'd say, take a soupspoon and spoon out a heaping scoop of sour cream, maybe an inch or so above the top of the bowl of the spoon at its highest point: that's a dollop. YDMV (Your Dollop May Vary). Experiment and see what you like.
Whether or not you use Heath bars, cinnamon, maple syrup, or other non-standard ingredients, the nuts are optional. Many people prefer chocolate chip cookies without nuts. Alternatively, you can try adding oatmeal (even if you don't add butterscotch chips) in the same volume as the nuts called for by the recipe (but if you do this, be sure to add more liquid). My friend Susan says that she doesn't bother adding more liquid and her cookies turn out fine, but I prefer always to add that extra tablespoon or two of milk. Also, if you add the Reese's peanut butter morsels as discussed above, they melt and create some additional moistness in the cookies.
The morsels don't have to be Nestle. However, in my experience Nestle morsels do melt in a most satisfactory way during the baking process. Ghirardelli and Guittard morsels are very good. I also like the Hershey mini-morsels for this. The standard-size Hershey Morsels, however, do not melt properly -- at least not in the eight-to-ten-minute baking time of cookies -- and I do not recommend them for use in cookies (although they are terrific in brownies, which bake for a much longer period).
The morsels MUST, however, be semisweet (i.e. dark) chocolate. Milk chocolate morsels, which are sold in similar bags to the undiscerning, are massively too sweet to put into these cookies.
I do feel obligated to point out, for that matter,that both the morsels and the baking itself can be optional. Those of us who make chocolate chip cookies know how important it is to sample the dough before baking! And I'd have to confess that sometimes the raw dough (I prefer my raw dough chipless) is even better than the cookies.
If you do like to eat raw dough, though, be careful. Any foodstuff containing raw eggs can harbor salmonella and/or other nasty little bacteria. Don't use eggs that were cracked before you opened them. Wash the eggshells in warm soapy water (and rinse them well) before cracking the eggs and using them. Alternatively, use one of the pasteurized egg substitutes. And remember that raw dough can be risky. It is especially risky for anyone with a susceptibility to infections or a compromised immune system. So be cautious.
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