Christmas is a wonderful time of year to bake cookies and it is a great chance to make family memories, too. Have your children help you bake cookies and all of you can enjoy the sweet smells as the cookies bake. You can take turns telling stories while you share a cup of hot chocolate. The wonderful family memories will last a lot longer that your cookies will! My all-time favorite cookies are TOLL HOUSE chocolate chip cookies. I can almost smell warm chocolate chip cookies as I am writing about them; they are so deeply imbedded in my memories of Christmas.



TOLL HOUSE chocolate chip cookies

Nestles has made different types of morsels to suit everyone's personal desire and taste. They now have white chocolate morsels, swirled milk chocolate and caramel morsels, semi-sweet chocolate swirled with white chocolate morsels, mini morsels and the regular semi-sweet chocolate morsels. Each bag has its own recipe but each type of morsels uses the same ingredient, with the exception of the White Chocolate Chip Cookies which have one additional ingredient for the “dry” mixture (Nestle's TOLL HOUSE BAKING cocoa).

If you want to double the recipe in order to be part of a cookie exchange group, the main ingredients for each type of cookie can be doubled. Then it would be necessary to double the amount of morsels. The basic ingredients doubled are: 4 & ½ cup all purpose flour, 2 teaspoon baking soda, 2 teaspoon salt, 2 cups butter softened (4 sticks), 1 & ½ cup granulated sugar, 1 & ½ cup of packed brown sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and 4 eggs.

White Chocolate cookies you will need to add 1 additional ingredient to the dry mixture. It is 1 & 1/3 cups Toll House baking cocoa to the dry mixture and 2 packages (12oz.) of Nestle's TOLL HOUSE Premium White Morsels.

Milk chocolate and caramel cookies you will need 2 packages (12oz.) of Nestle's TOLL HOUSE Milk Chocolate and Caramel Morsels (1 cup chopped pecans, if you want).

Swirled semi-sweet white chocolate cookies you will need 2 packages (12oz.) of Nestle's TOLL HOUSE swirled Real Semi-Sweet & White Chocolate Morsels (2 cups of nuts, if you like).

After you have gathered all your ingredients, heat the oven to 350*. You will need 2 bowls: a medium one for the dry mixture and a large one to mix all the ingredients for the cookies. In the medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients (4 & ½ cup all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons baking soda). In the large bowl, add the 1 & ½ cup of granulated sugar and 1 & ½ cup of packed brown sugar, 4 sticks (2 cups) softened margarine, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and beat until creamy. Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after adding each one.

Now, gradually add the dry mixture. Stir in 2 bags of your choice of morsels (and nuts if you choose). Drop a rounded tablespoon of dough onto ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Place a few morsels on top of each cookie and bake 9-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes then remove to wire racks. This will make about 9 dozen of the best tasting cookies you will ever have!

It is fun to see if someone in your family or a close friend wants to share their favorite cookies with you by becoming part of a Christmas Cookie Exchange. Because many people have favorites of their own, you will be able to enjoy a variety of cookies. It is simple when you double your recipes. You will be able to share ½ of your baked goods and receive ½ of theirs so you will have a bigger selection.

My family loves my Christmas cookies but they also love and enjoy eating different kinds of cookies baked by their aunt. In Favorite Christmas Cookies 1, you saw how I made Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies. In Christmas Cookies Part 3, you will see another kind of cookie called Swirled Turtle Brownies. You can also see other recipes in the article entitled “Cookie Exchange Will Save at Time at Christmas”. Enjoy the time you spend making Christmas cookies and memories and remember, make it fun.