(Not-as-high-of-a) Toll House Cookie

I’m a bold cook and a reluctant baker. My dessert repertoire consists of brownies, strawberry shortcake, blueberry galette, and Toll House Cookies. The latter is my go-to. My daughter counts on these for nutritional and emotional sustenance, so I make double batches and freeze the dough to slice and bake whenever they are needed.

I started out making them the way my mom, Mary Ann, first taught me, according to the recipe on the bag of Nestle semi-sweet morsels. My mom, like her mother, Helen, before her, taught me that a recipe is just a starting point.

A gift for tinkering in the kitchen is my inheritance.

My mom’s signature innovation to these cookies—like so many leaps forward throughout human evolution—was a product of necessity. With a batter whipped to peaked perfection, mom realized her cupboards were bare (oops!) of chips. She improvised by hand-chopping bittersweet chocolate baking bars into mini-mountains of crumbly dust and tossing this into the batter. The result was a cookie with a blend of chocolate streaks and tiny chunks as opposed to solely large chunks. Differently delicious. Mom took to always hand-chopping or pulsing some portion of her chips ever after.

Over the years I’ve realized what’s most important is the process of the original recipe: the creaming of the butter and sugar until fluffy, the suspension of solids in fat. Armed with my mother’s spirit of innovation and motivated by knowledge about the positive health benefits of whole grains and reduced fats, I’ve put my own spin on things. This healthier version that doesn’t sacrifice flavor or mouth feel.

My recipe reduces the butter by half, replacing it with Greek yogurt and clarified butter (ghee). I use less sugar overall, and only brown sugar, and only whole grain and nut flours. These cookies will be browner than cookies made with white flour and sugar.

INGREDIENTS

1 stick of butter, softened
1.5 cups dark brown sugar
1 T Ghee
2 T low-fat plain greek yogurt
1 T organic Vanilla extract
2 eggs
2.5 cups of assorted nut and whole grain flours, more to thicken, such as:
3/4 cup oat flour (make your own by processing whole oats until powdery)
1 cup walnut or almond flour
1 cup +/- white whole wheat flour
2 tsp salt
1T baking soda
1 16 oz package of dark chocolate morsels (pulse half in a food processor until crumbly for the Mary Ann effect!)

Cream butters, yogurt, and sugar on high speed in mixer for 5 minutes—until seriously fluffy. On medium, mix in eggs one at a time, and vanilla, then mix on high for several minutes until fluffy.

Combine dry ingredients and add to butter sugar mixture a bit at a time, mixing well. Add chocolate chunks and mix. Dough will be sticky. Remove bowl from mixer and finish blending ingredients. (If you wish to freeze batter, this is the time to do it!)

Using ice cream scoop make cookie dough into uniform sized balls and place on cookie sheet at least two inches apart.

Cook in 375 degree oven until brown, 8-10 minutes.