See's Original Chocolate Chip Cookies

If there is one thing I love, it's chocolate chip cookies. I grew up on the traditional Nestle Toll House variety, but have always wondered if there was something else out there... something better. I've been collecting recipes on Pinterest and trying different chips in search of the *best* chocolate chip cookie. This year, I decided to buy a bag of chips from my new favorite chocolatier: See's Candies. 

I love their chocolates, their lollipops, their truffles. To be honest, I've yet to find anything I *don't* like from See's, so it seemed like a safe bet. The chips were a bit pricy at $5.75/lb., but can we really put a price on culinary perfection? Nooooo... *wink* 

I couldn't believe how BIG the chips were. In fact, "big" is an understatement... these suckers are HUGE. Ginormous. Each chip is about the size of a nickel, maybe a bit bigger. Just seeing the size of the chip was the beginning of the end for me. I like a traditional sized chip. In recent years, my grandma started making her Nestle Tollhouse Cookies with their chocolate chunks rather than their chips and I even thought those were too big. BUT, I paid nearly $6 for these babies, so I wasn't going to let size deter me. I pressed on... 

I followed the See's Original Chocolate Chip Recipe on the bag (see below) and baked off a batch, fully prepared for heavenly chocolate chip cookie bliss, but I never quite achieved that state of sugar induced nirvana I was hoping for. The chips were hard to mix into the dough because they were so large. I ended up with some cookies that only had one chip and others that had several. They baked out very flat, but to their credit never got hard or crunchy (a serious pet peeve!). In short, I was disappointed. I wouldn't buy them again. In my honest opinion, Nestle wins this battle in a landslide. 

Here's the recipe if anyone would like to try it. I'm tempted to try it with the Nestle chips just for shiggles, but we'll see if it ever happens. 

1 c. Butter - cream well

1 c. Light Brown Sugar

Add gradually to above: 

1 c. Sugar

Beat into the above:

2 Eggs

1 1/2 t. Vanilla

Mix together, add to above, blending well:

2 1/4 c. Flour

1/2 t. Salt

1 t. Baking Soda

1 c. Chopped Walnuts (I omitted. I have a serious aversion to nuts in cookies.)

2 c. See's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake @ 375˚ F 8-10 minutes. Yield @ 4 dozen cookies. 

There is also a recipe on the back of the bag for See's Gooey Brownies. I've been lamenting the fact that I didn't try those instead. I probably would have liked them better, even though I'm not really a brownie fan in general (but seriously, a GOOEY brownie? Who can resist that? Although honestly, since trying the Chocolate Cookie Dough Brownies that Bakerella posted a few years back I've never tried another brownie recipe. When you find something you love you just stick with it! 

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here. If I love Nestle so much, why do I keep looking for something better?