Mom’s Choclate Chip Cookies

Some recipes aren’t meant to be healthified.
In fact, healthifying them might actually be WRONG.

Case in fact – my mom’s chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I’ve learned this from experience.  When you want your mother’s chocolate chip cookies, you aren’t truly craving cookies – you’re craving comfort.  And healthifying the recipe will only leave you unsatisfied and still in need of comfort.

My mom’s chocolate chip cookies are my comfort food.  I specifically remember a time in college when I came home one weekend, devastated and upset by an event that happened [something that I look back on now as trivial but at the time viewed as detrimental].  When I arrived home that morning, my mom was in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies.  I sat at the kitchen table with a glass of milk, ate those cookies, and cried while I talked to my mom about what was bothering me. And afterwards, I felt better.  Yes, sharing my thoughts with my mom while eating her warm, fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies, made me feel better.

It’s often stated that you shouldn’t comfort yourself or hide your feelings with food – but there’s always an exception.  And in this case, my mom’s chocolate chips cookies are love in a physical form. They are comfort and they make people feel better.  So when I need some comforting and am miles away from my mom but yearning for her comfort and a hug – her cookies are the closest I get to feeling that embrace.

I’ve also learned that in order for them to truly be comforting, I need to be made using the exact same brands of ingredients she uses.  Using an alternative will not deliver the same taste, love, or comfort.

So, here’s my mom’s chocolate chip cookie recipe – with the exact brands you need to make them to feel my mom’s comforting, loving hug via chocolate chip cookies.

Mom Hellert’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1/2 cup Butter Flavored Crisco
• 1/2 cup Land O’Lakes Unsalted Butter
• 1 cup Domino Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 cup Domino Light Brown Sugar
• 2 eggs [white eggs please…] 
• 1 tsp McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract
• 2 1/2 cups Gold Medal All-Purpose Flour, sifted
• 1 tsp Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
• 1 tsp salt [table salt, none of that fancy sea stuff]
• 2 cups Nestle Semi Sweet Morsels*

 

Directions: 
Preheat oven to 375*

In a stand mixer, cream together crisco, butter, sugars, and vanilla until light & fluffy.
Beat in eggs. In a separate bowl, sift together flower, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture [in 2 – 3 batches].
Fold in chocolate chips.

Place tablespoon-sized mounds on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-11 minutes or until lightly golden in color. [It’s best to rotate the sheet half way through baking to ensure cookies are evenly browned.]

Let cookies cool slightly on tray.  They’re best eaten warm, minutes out of the oven!

*Note: My mom actually used 1 cup Nestle Semi Sweet Morsels and 1 cup Nestle Semi Sweet & Premier White Chocolate Morsels but these are often difficult to find.  An adequate replacement would be to sub a 1/2 cup of Nestle Premier White Chocolate Morsels for a portion of the semi sweet.

*Note: My mom would also, sometimes, add in chopped walnuts.  If you like nuts in your chocolate chip cookies, add in a 1/2 cup chopped walnuts when folding in the chocolate chips.