Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies are delicious. My favorite kind of cookies are chocolate chip, so I spent a summer break in college perfecting my chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's mostly the recipe on the back of TOLL HOUSE® chocolate chips, but with the salt replaced by cinnamon and with slightly more flour. They're good fresh from the oven, but I actually prefer them after the finished cookies have spent a night in the refrigerator, as the cinnamon comes through better.

Allergy Information

Contains dairy, eggs, gluten. Unfortunately I don't have enough experience here to suggest substitutions. :(

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
7/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups chocolate chips

Equipment

Required

An oven
Cookie sheet(s)
Oven mitts and pads or the equivalent heat protection
Two large mixing bowls
Measuring cup(s) and spoon(s)
Something to mix with (a fork and spoon will work in a pinch)
A spatula for removing cookies from the cookie sheet when they're done baking

Baking Instructions

Mixing the dough

Mix flour, baking soda, and cinnamon in one mixing bowl, then set it aside
Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract until uniform in the other mixing bowl
Add eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each
Slowly mix in the dry mixture
Fold in chocolate chips

Baking the cookies

Preheat oven to 375F
If you have parchment paper, lay it over your cookie sheet(s). You may want to make it a bit longer so extra paper hangs off the ends, making it easier to separate the parchment paper from the cookie sheet when it comes out of the oven, for example to easily and quickly move the entire sheet of cookies to a cooling area. You may end up with more sheets of parchment paper than you have cookie sheets, which is fine.
Spoon the dough onto your cookie sheets. I use a regular teaspoon for this (the kind you use for mixing tea or eating soup, not the measuring/baking kind), scooping irregular balls of dough about an inch and a half in diameter onto the sheet. If you want, you can save a few chocolate chips separate from the dough prep step above and add them now to fill in chip-free gaps in the surface of the cookies for a more uniform appearance.
Bake on the middle rack in the oven until the edges just start to brown (I find this typically takes about 6-8 minutes, but may depend on your local conditions and oven)
Let cookies cool after removing them from the oven for at least two minutes before attempting to remove them from the cookie sheet or parchment paper. If you're using parchment paper, it is fine to immediately move the entire sheet of parchment paper from the cookie sheet onto a cooling rack or other surface, with the cookies on top, but you should still wait a couple minutes before attempting to remove the cookies from the parchment paper itself.

Storage Tips

If you like cookies fresh from the oven, feel free to enjoy them right away, but if you're like me and prefer them after some time in the fridge (or if you don't feel up to eating an entire batch of cookies in a single sitting) you'll need to store them somewhere.

Use a (mostly) airtight container. Old cookie tins are obviously a good choice, but you can also use plastic storage containers or even re-use old take-out or delivery containers.
Line the container with paper towels. This isn't strictly necessary, but I find it helps keep cookies from sticking to the sides of the container.
Add a slice of bread to the container with the cookies. This has nothing to do with flavor but everything to do with keeping the cookies moist while in the fridge; dry cookies are sad cookies. Any bread will help, but wheat bread tends to keep cookies from drying out longer. If you're worried about your cookies tasting bready, feel free to put the bread slice on the opposite side of a paper towel from the cookies themselves. If the slice of bread starts getting too dry or stale. feel free to replace it with a fresh one.

If you are looking for longer-term storage, these cookies should freeze well in a freezer bag, but that isn't a problem I personally face, even though I often make them in double-batches. :)

Variations

This recipe is pretty resilient to adjustments and variations (it's a variation of the TOLL HOUSE® recipe after all) so feel free to play around with it to suit your tastes. One of the most common things you may want to do is adjust the flour ratio to suit your local altitude: the higher you are, the less flour you need. You can also reduce the amount of flour if you want a thinner cookie that's more likely to break apart when you eat it, or add more if you somehow don't think they're thick enough already; I wouldn't go much lower than 9/4 cups or any more than 5/2 cups, though.

If you prefer margarine to butter, a 1:1 substitution is possible but not recommended. You should not replace the butter with shortening, as this results in decidedly subpar cookies.

You can adjust the size of the cookies themselves pretty freely--smaller cookies should be fine, and I have confirmed that making one giant cookie works just as well. Likewise, if you prefer cookie bars over regular cookies, you should be able to bake this same dough in a greased pan like brownie batter to satisfy your cravings.

The original TOLL HOUSE® uses 1 tsp of salt instead of cinnamon, and optionally includes some chopped nuts; either or both of those is obviously fine, as is leaving out the salt and cinnamon entirely, but I don't prefer any of these changes personally.

At the end of the day, you should feel empowered to experiment with this recipe to suit your tastes. Make the best cookies for you!