Directions: |
Directions:PREHEAT oven to 375° F.
Follow the recipe on the back of your Nestle chocolate chip morsels - with the modifications below!
COMBINE flour, instant pudding mix, 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 optional nuts. 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.
The following steps are from an article I found on the internet that I stole all of my tips from:
Add a little milk, maybe just a tablespoon or two, when you are mixing the dough. This will make it less stiff and the cookies will be less hard and crunchy when they are done. If you do this, though, make sure the dough is nice and cold as you drop it onto the cookie sheet, and also make sure the cookie sheet is room temperature or cooler when you put the dough on it and put it into the oven. If the dough melts around the edges before it starts to bake, sometimes the edges will burn or get too brown.
Always use real butter. Don't let anyone convince you that butter vs. margarine doesn't make any difference. It does. Don't just let the butter sit out at room temperature to become soft. Instead, melt it, very carefully, so that it doesn't burn (you can use a double boiler -- if anyone out there still has one! -- or else a microwave oven that is set very low and which you are watching like a hawk). A microwave can burn the butter in a second if you turn your back at an inopportune moment. (Use a Pyrex or other microwave-safe transparent container if you do this, so you can watch the butter closely.) Melted butter, because it is both warm and liquid, does a much better job of dissolving and melting the sugar than a room-temperature creamed butter can do, improving the consistency of the dough as you are working with it, and also improving the texture of the cookies after they are baked. Also, if you have often had a problem with your brown sugar clumping together into giant bricks, which you are then banging on the edge of the kitchen counter in order to break them up enough to use the stuff; still, big lumps of brown sugar survive even into the baked cookies. Well, if you take the big solid mass of brown sugar, roughly the volume you desire, put it into the microwave with the melting butter in the Pyrex cup, and let it melt on a very low setting for a few minutes, you will find that the brown sugar will liquefy very nicely. It will help it along if you stir the contents for a few seconds after removing the cup from the microwave. It will then pour smoothly into the mixing bowl. Let it cool briefly before adding the eggs, so they don't poach before you can mix them into the other wet ingredients.
So many people write to me to ask about problems they run into making Toll House cookies, and the #1 problem I hear about is: "My cookies come out flat! What can I do?" This is such a common problem. Here are the first few things you should check:
-make sure your cookie dough is cold when you put it on the cookie sheet. If you have to chill it in between batches, that's what you should do;
-make sure your cookie sheet is cooled to room temperature between batches. I usually rinse mine under the tap to clean off the crumbs and cool it down;
-mix the dough thoroughly but don't over-mix it;
-try adding a tablespoon up to an additional 1/4 cup of flour to the recipe;
-don't overbake. |
This recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies is from