Holiday Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is the chocolate chip cookie every home baker should know by heart. The Toll House DNA runs through the recipe: equal parts brown and granulated sugar, two sticks of butter, twelve ounces of semisweet chips, and an optional cup of nuts.

Beating the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy is what builds the cookie’s structure. This step takes longer than you’d think, about three to four minutes on medium-high speed. The aeration creates tiny pockets that give the cookies their tender lift.

The sugar ratio is what dials in the texture. Equal granulated and brown gives you crisp edges and chewy centers. More brown sugar tilts toward chewy, more granulated tilts toward crisp. Stick with the half-and-half for the classic balance.

Dropping by teaspoon and spacing two inches apart matters because these cookies spread. Crowded cookies merge into a sheet pan of one giant cookie, which has its own appeal but isn’t what we’re going for.

Pro Tips

• Pull cookies at golden brown around the edges. Centers should look slightly underdone, since they finish setting on the hot pan.
• Toast the walnuts or pecans in a dry skillet for 5 minutes first. Untoasted nuts taste flat against the chocolate.
• Refrigerate the dough overnight if you want deeper flavor and chewier texture.
• Let cookies rest on the sheet two minutes before transferring to a rack so they don’t break.

Variations

• Swap half the semisweet chips for white chocolate or butterscotch chips for a holiday tri-color cookie.
• Add a teaspoon of cinnamon or ¼ teaspoon of espresso powder to deepen the flavor.
• Press a Hershey kiss into each cookie right out of the oven for blossom-style cookies.