The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes you just gotta have a warm, gooey, just-baked chocolate chip cookie! It’s comfort food. It all started in my childhood growing up with two sisters and a neighborhood full of little girls our age.  The smell of cookies would always be wafting from someone’s home - especially on rainy Saturday afternoons!  Once the cartoons were over, if we weren’t outside playing, my older sister and I would find ourselves in the kitchen at our home or our friends’ homes, mixing up a batch.  And the best part was that none of our parents monitored how many we ate, so there were times I’m pretty sure we ate the whole batch!

Baking cookies continues to be my happy place!  I’ve long lost the recipe from back then, but after trying many, many recipes, including the one on the back of the Nestle Toll House chocolate chips package, I found this one and it’s now my go-to whenever I need a chocolate chip cookie fix.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
• 1 cup each brown sugar (packed) and white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups chocolate chips or chocolate chunks

Directions:

Cream together the butter and sugars until well combined.  Add in the eggs and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy.  Slowly add in the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.  Stir in the chocolate chips. 

Drop or scoop into 1” spoonfuls onto a parchment covered cookie sheet (I like my cookies small so I can eat more!).  Or alternatively, if you like large, massive chocolate chip cookies, use 3-4 tablespoons per cookie, but just press them down a bit before baking as they don’t spread as well as the smaller ones … and also bake them a few minutes longer.

Bake the small cookies for approximately 6-8 minutes until just starting to look cooked and lightly browned around the edges and beginning to bubble but still appearing a little undone in the center.  Let cool for a few minutes, then place on a cooling rack to cool completely.

Recipe credit: Joyfoodsunshine.com