I love homemade chocolate chip cookies. My kids love to help me by taking turns dumping the ingredients and stirring and mixing. When the vanilla comes we all love to inhale that mesmerizing smell. I don’t know how many times I have had to convince the kids that it doesn’t taste good by itself. Some lessons are learned the hard way. Then the grand finale of the chocolate chips which I always add a little less than a full bag. I like chocolate chips but somehow this seems to be the right amount in my opinion. After all the cookies are in the oven everyone dukes it out for who gets to lick the remaining dough. Since there are four of them I usually manage to give the bowl to the oldest, the beaters to the middle two and a spoon of dough to the little one.

I have a certain texture and consistency of a cookie that I love. I don’t like it when they spread out and lose their shape. I don’t like too crispy or bready or dry, or crumbly. I like a sweet golden cookie that has a slight crisp along the edges but a chewy soft inside. The problem was that while I knew what I liked I never knew how to achieve it consistently. For whatever reason it took about 20 years for me to figure out a recipe that seemed to nail it every time. I’ve tried a lot of different recipes including ones from Pinterest. Most of the time I just went with whatever is on the back of the chocolate chip bag. Finally one day when the cookies were just right I saved the bag with the recipe on it. It was a generic brand semi-sweet chocolate chips from Meijer which I don’t go to very often. Granted I could have copied the recipe or taken a picture or something but instead I just kept the empty bag in the pantry. Even if I bought a different brand of chips I always used that recipe. Then one day out of curiosity I started comparing the recipe that I had with other recipes I had pinned or gotten off of chocolate chip bags. I wanted to know the secret. Was there more or less of something? Different cooking time? As I researched I found differences between each recipe but I stumbled on one recipe that was the exact same and when I saw what it was I was shaking my head. It was Nestle Tollhouse! I know this might seem obvious but if you are a fan of the show Friends you might see the irony in this.

There is an episode in season 7 where Monica is desperately trying to figure out Pheobe’s grandmothers chocolate chip cookie recipe. Pheobe won’t share the family secret so Monica makes dozens and dozens of cookies trying to duplicate Pheobe’s secret so that someday she can fulfill her dream of being the mom who makes the world’s best chocolate chip cookies. Eventually Pheobe divulges that the recipe came from her great great grandmother Nesle Toulouse (which she says with a French accent).

That’s when Monica realizes that the recipe was from Nestle Tollhouse and was on the back of the chocolate chip bag the whole time!

I had a complete flashback to that episode when I saw that my favorite recipe was technically Nestle Toll House.  I should have known that it was the world’s best cookie recipe! Why didn’t I just believe the Friends episode that I saw when I was 17?

Anyway, I thought it was too funny not to share and in honor of my discovery, here is a copy of the official Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:

  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • A little less than 2 cups of chocolate chips (that’s my modification the Nestle recipe is just 2 cups)

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

ENJOY!