A Christmas tradition at my house is to bake my mom's chocolate chip cookies. These are the cookies we leave for Santa on Christmas Eve!
Since I was little, my mom and I have always baked cookies together at this time of year. I remember being so excited to help when I was young, and I would push a chair to the counter so I could stand on it and see what was happening. One of the cookies we bake every year is her chocolate chip cookies.
These are possibly my favorite of all the cookies we bake together. They are crisp on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside. Just how a chocolate chip cookie should be! I also love these cookies, because my mom would add mint chocolate chips to make them extra festive. The flavor of the mint is the perfect addition! Unfortunately, I have not been able to find mint chocolate chips, so have had to use regular chocolate chips lately.
How to Make My Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies
While the full recipe instructions are available below, here are some tips to make my mom's cookies!
Butter: be sure to use unsalted butter. This is important, because you want to be able to control the amount of salt in the cookies. Also be sure to let your butter come to room temperature and soften. This is important because it allows the sugar and butter to cream together better, creating a fluffier dough.
Sugar: this recipe uses both brown and granulated sugar. Do not substitute the brown sugar. The brown sugar is important because it gives the cookie its chewy texture which is what we are after!
Chocolate Chips: you can use just about any type of chocolate chips in this recipe that you like! Personally, I prefer to use mint chocolate chips. Since I could not find mint chocolate chips, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Chilling the Dough: while you can chill the dough before placing the cookies onto the baking sheet, I recommend you do the opposite. I prefer to place the cookies on the cookie sheet and then place the cookie sheet in the fridge to chill for at least 15 minutes. This way, the dough is easier to work with when placing onto the cookie sheet, and it doesn't warm up while you're working with it before putting the cookies in the oven. Chilling the dough before baking is important because it prevents your cookies from spreading out too much while baking. Chilling your dough also impacts the melting process of the butter in the dough. This results in a fluffier cookie once baked!
Preheat oven to 375F. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs until light and fluffy, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
Mix in the flour, baking soda, and salt until well combined. Mix in the chocolate chips.
On a parchment lined baking sheet, drop a heaping teaspoon of batter 2 inches apart from each other.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the edges of the cookies start to turn golden. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
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