Original Nestle Toll House Cookies

This is the chocolate chip cookie recipe that launched a billion batches. The original Toll House formula from the back of the Nestle bag has barely changed since Ruth Wakefield created it, and for good reason: the ratio of butter to both white and brown sugar produces a cookie that’s crispy at the edges and chewy in the center.

Creaming the softened butter with both sugars until the mixture is truly fluffy, not just combined, is what builds the structure. That process whips air into the fat, and those tiny air pockets expand in the oven to give the cookies their lift. Undermix and you get flat, dense discs.

Adding the flour mixture gradually rather than dumping it all in at once prevents pockets of dry flour from hiding in the dough. But once the flour is in, stop mixing. Overworking the dough at this stage develops gluten and makes the cookies tough instead of tender.

Rounded teaspoonfuls keep the cookies small and uniform so they bake evenly in that 10 to 12 minute window.

Pro Tips

• Use truly softened butter, not melted. Melted butter changes the texture entirely, producing flatter, greasier cookies
• Pull the cookies from the oven when they still look slightly underdone in the center. They continue baking on the hot sheet for another minute or two
• Chill the dough for 30 minutes before scooping if your kitchen is warm. Cold dough spreads less and produces thicker cookies
• Let the baking sheet cool between batches or the dough will start melting before it hits the oven

Variations

• Use dark chocolate chunks instead of semi-sweet morsels for a more intense, bittersweet bite
• Swap the nuts for toasted pecans or macadamia nuts for a richer flavor
• Add a generous pinch of flaky sea salt on top of each cookie before baking for a sweet-salty contrast