Ruth Wakefield’s Original Toll House Cookie [RECIPE]

We all love chocolate chip cookies, but if you have always found yourself looking at the back of the bag of chocolate chips for the recipe, you may have realized that it has changed over the years. As such, the cookies your grandma made probably aren’t the ones you’re making now. Like many of our favorite things, the original recipe was formulated in New England. This one was concocted at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, way back in the 1930s. And while it is hard to go wrong with any of the recipes printed on the bags, we believe the original by Ruth Wakefield is still the best. Try it and let us know if you agree! Be sure to read our baking tips before you begin for best results.

TOTAL TIME: 45 minutes
HANDS-ON TIME: 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter (We bring to room temperature for easy mixing.)
• 3/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved into 1 teaspoon hot water
• 2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional) (We use chopped walnuts.)
• 12 ounces (2 cups) semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375° F.
2. Cream the butter and sugars. Add the beaten eggs. Add the baking soda dissolved in hot water.
3. Sift together the flour and salt and add to the butter mixture. Then stir in the nuts, chocolate chips, and vanilla.
4. Chill the dough. (We usually chill for at least an hour and up to overnight.)
5. Drop by the tablespoonful onto lightly greased cookie sheets and bake until browned at the edges, 10 to 12 minutes.

J&H’S BAKING TIPS: Skip greasing the cookie sheets and put parchment paper on the baking trays instead. This makes for easy cleanup and also helps keep the cookies from becoming too thin. If you like jumbo-sized cookies like we do, use an ice cream scoop to dollop five big cookies per tray, leaving plenty of room for the cookies to spread. You’ll get about 20 cookies this way rather than the 2 to 3 dozen that Ruth got out of the recipe. We bake for 12 minutes, pull the tray from the oven and tap hard on the stove top to remove air pockets from the cookies. This helps compact the cookies and gives them that crinkly top that we love. Put tray back in oven and bake about 2 minutes more, or until cookies are perfectly browned around the edges. Let cool on trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before storing in a cookie jar.

YIELD: 2 to 3 dozen (Or about 20 large cookies using our method.)

As originally printed in Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House Tried and True Recipes ©1945.