A while ago I read an article from an author who was remembering all the wonderful foods from her childhood. Unfortunately none of the recipes were passed down. Her mother and aunts considered them a secret. Yep, so secret that now the actual recipes & techniques were lost.
To prevent this happening with my mother-in-law, I watched her one day and wrote down how she made the galumkies, the chili, the zucchini bread.
My mom, though, had no such reservations. We have all our childhood recipes. I have been reluctant to share though, since, everyone compliments the chocolate chip cookies as delicious and different….so I have kept the recipe secret.
Until now – my Christmas gift to you is my mom’s Toll house cookies.
It’s not even all that different from what’s on the bag, but they do come out differently. Each cookie puffs up a little while baking, then settles back down as it cools.
In one step she always mixed the baking soda with hot water and then added it into the batter. I suppose this activates the baking soda better than mixing it in dry.
And she made the batter very stiff – really using more flour than the recipes calls for. She was not a stir-the-flour-and-lightly-spoon into the measuring cup. Nope, she bought flour in 20 pound bags, dumped into a big container, and would just dive in with the cup.
So though the recipe calls for 2.5 cups of flour, I use closer to 3 cups to get them to come out right.
One last thing – my mom always cooled her cookies on newspaper. Sometime paper bags, but usually newspaper. I guess it’s just what we had. The paper does something – soaks up a bit of the grease that oozes from the bottom I suppose. Anyway they aren’t the same without doing this. So I leave the cooking racks in the cupboard cabinet for these.
The only thing I do differently from Mom is bake them on parchment paper. I don’t want to scrub cookies sheets!
Mom’s Toll House Cookies
soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies – the ones form my childhood! This makes 3 dozen cookies.
Ingredients
Cream together in a mixing bowl
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2-3/4 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
Dissolve together and add to the dough
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp hot water
Add in and mix
- 2 1/2 – 3 c flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 375F
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Cream the butter, shortening, sugars and eggs together.
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Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water and then mix into the creamed ingredients
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Add the flour a cup at a time, working into the creamed mix. Add the salt, vanilla, and mix well. Add 1 cup of chocolate chips and mix briefly.
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Remove the bowl form the mixer and stir up from the bottom in case any flour or creamed mix is not incorporated. You should have a very stiff batter.
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Bake 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. When I remember, I turn the pans half way through in case the oven has any hot spots. I find you can put in up to 2 pans, but 3 pans does not work well, should your oven allow for that. Really one pan at a time is perfect.
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REmove and cool for a couple minutes, then using a thin spatula remove to the newspaper. Cool completely (if you can! they are wonderful when still warm!)
Recipe Notes
My mom used to add in chopped nutmeats, or turn them into a different cookies with peanut chips instead of chocolate ones.
Add 1/4 cup cocoa and make them chocolate -chocolate chip cookies! Or chocolate with peanut butter chips!