Whenever I eat a chocolate chip cookie I always think of Gilda Radner and the Saturday Night Live crew from back in “them” days. Saturday night in front of the TV with a freshly baked batch of Toll House cookies ready to handle the munchies, was a weekly tradition. We made the cookies that never failed, from the recipe that was printed right on the Nestle chocolate chip package, Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. In the old days the recipe was pretty much the same as it is today except an additional 1/2 tsp of water was called for. The one thing we did differently was to change out this ½ tsp of water for ½ tsp of almond extract. To this day I can’t resist the flavours of chocolate and almond when presented together in a sweet confection!

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 lb butter (1 cup) softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups chocolate chips (12 oz package)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375F
• Mix flour, baking soda and salt together and set aside.
• In a separate bowl cream the softened butter together with the white sugar and brown sugar. Add the sugar a bit at a time until it is well incorporated with the butter. You can use a mixer for this job or do it by hand (this is the way I usually do it!).
• Add the vanilla and almond extracts followed by the eggs (one at a time) and beat this mixture until light and fluffy.
• Do this next step by hand. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture a bit at a time until everything is evenly incorporated. The dough will be stiff by the time all the flour mixture has been added.
• mix in the chocolate chips
• Using a teaspoon, drop rounded spoonfuls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.
• Bake on the middle oven rack for 8 – 11 minutes. I like to make larger cookies that are soft and chewy when done so usually leave the cookies for around 10 minutes in the oven.
• Repeat until all the cookie dough is used up.
• The cookie yield varies. You will get around 60 cookies if you make them using only a rounded teaspoonful of dough. I use more dough per cookie and get about 25 cookies when I use this recipe.

My old recipe book is falling apart now but I still use the the recipes so carefully clipped from magazines or copied by hand when I was younger. Here’s a photo of the old Toll House recipe that I carefully scocth-taped onto a page about 36 years ago!