Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Since the diet is a big old thumbs down at the moment, here's a great chocolate chip cookie recipe. First I'll copy the recipe as stated, then share what changes I made. Seriously, these cookies were GOOD. Sorry I don't have a picture... by the time I thought to take a picture, they were all gone.

Here's the original Nestle Tollhouse recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large egg
• 1 (12 ounce) package NESTLE® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions

1. PREHEAT oven to 375 degrees F.
2. COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

After reading through a bunch of the comments about this recipe on allrecipes.com, I decided to try a few changes.

• You really need more than 2 1/4 cups of flour or the cookies will be too thin. I used 2 1/2 cups, but I just went with heaping measurements so it was actually more than that.

• Double the vanilla. When you alter a recipe for high altitude, usually you add more flour and add some water, but I went with extra vanilla instead. I used the amazingly wonderful madagascar vanilla bean paste instead of regular vanilla extract.

• Instead of 1 teaspoon of baking soda, I used slightly less than 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Usually I cut down on baking powder or baking soda when altering a recipe for high altitude.

• 1/2 teaspoon of salt instead of a whole teaspoon was plenty. I did use salted butter though. Actually I used Irish butter, which is divine and can be found at Costco.

• I left out the walnuts. I was making the cookies for some friends and wasn't sure if they liked nuts in their cookies or not. The recipe is great with or without the nuts.

• I used milk chocolate chips because I like them better. The cheap generic chocolate chips from King Soopers are super yummy.
  

• 9 minutes cooking time was perfect. I did not wait for them to be "golden brown" because I didn't want them to be crunchy.

The "Improved" Recipe:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (heaping cups is fine... there's no need to measure precisely)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, or slightly less
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, or slightly less
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4-1 cup granulated sugar
  
• 3/4-1 cup packed brown sugar
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 (12 ounce) package milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
  
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional; walnuts work well)
  

Directions

1. PREHEAT oven to 375 degrees F.
2. COMBINE flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. (At this point, you might want to taste the dough. Don't eat too much because of the raw eggs, but this cookie dough is GOOD!). Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until they're a little brown on the edges. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. I ended up with 38 fairly small cookies.

Oh and one more tip.... when storing the cookies, put a piece of bread in the container with them. It keeps them nice and chewy.

Enjoy!