Toll House

I’ve made chocolate chip cookies all my life. 

It’s a kind of a family tradition.

My mom taught all of her children at a young age.

This is my Mom. 2008.

This is us in 1982.  We all agree, that my brother, Sean, was the cutest of all of us.

 I mean, look at that pose!

She instilled in us the value of making something from nothing.
Using your own two hands… but most importantly, your heart.

She would strap on our aprons and hand us the flour and measuring cups,
her own soft hands speckled in white.

She taught us that with baking came precision,

and that each step was equally important to the success of the batch as a whole.

As a result, each of us would take special pride in our role.
Whether it was mixing the grainy sugar and butter ‘til it was silky smooth,   
or cracking the eggs one-by-one and pouring in the sweet smelling vanilla extract. . .

. . . it was done with care.

She taught us patience. . . 
to add the flour to the sugar mixture in small increments and to blend well in between,
until it was creamy.

And when it came time to add the semi-sweet chocolate chips,

the smell of those sweet morsels filled the air as it was folded into the cool dough. 

Our mouths would water, knowing that once mixed,
my mom would let us lick the mixing blades. 

Our favorite part.

We would place spoonfuls of dough on a baking sheet in rows. . .

. . .and when my mom wasn’t looking, we would sneak a couple spoonfuls into our mouths.

Oops.  I guess you are not supposed to do that.

350 degrees and 12 minutes later. . .
a fresh batch of oowey gooey chocolate chip cookies were ready for milk dipping.

As we got older, we became self-sufficient in our baking.

And we would make our own batches for those we love. . . 

 

with my Mother’s calm voice resounding in our ears,

the recipe and her lessons now embedded in our brains. . .

 and our hearts.

 

If you’d like to make a ooowey, gooey batch of your own, check out the recipe here:

Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Photos: rantyyustinadewi.wordpress.com, kitchencritic.co.uk, waoh247.com