The list of necessary ingredients is super simple if you’re baking chocolate chip cookies. Here’s the full list:
Ingredient quantities are detailed in the printable recipe card below.
If you’re an expat, you may need to make some extra efforts since some of the ingredients, namely dark brown sugar and chocolate chips, aren’t always easy to find. Surprisingly, bags of Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Toll House Morsels aren’t commonly sold in European grocery stores.
Pro Tip
If you can’t find brown sugar or semi-sweet chocolate chips at an international grocery store, you should be able to order them from an internet shopping site like Amazon.
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
As we noted above, Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Toll House Morsels are not a common grocery store item in Europe since European supermarkets more typically sell dark chocolate chips. Unless you want to use dark chocolate chips, the better move is to buy semi-sweet chocolate chips at an American expat store.
Another option is to chop chocolate chunks. But be aware – the chunks need to be small enough to mix into the dense cookie dough. Also note that this option creates extra work.
Flour
Any American all-purpose flour will work in this recipe. Stay away from bread flour since the higher protein content in these flours will cause your cookies to become too chewy.
Since we live in Lisbon, we typically use a common flour labeled 55 non self rising for bolos (i.e. cakes in Portuguese). It’s similar to the flour classification system found in France. This flour type works great.
Butter
Finding the right butter to use seems difficult but it should be fairly simple. You can buy a tub or package of good quality butter and then weigh it.
We’ve found 227 grams of butter to be ideal in this recipe. Also, we consider salted butter to be a ‘better butter’ for this recipe. We love salt and the flavor that it adds to our cookies.
Pro Tips
Make sure your butter is softened to a moderate room temperature of around 70°f / 21°c before using it. Also, make sure not to over mix your butter or your cookies will spread and flatten.
Granulated Sugar
Granulated sugar is readily available throughout most of the world. If you can’t find white granulated sugar, you could use a course sugar. However, you would need to grind it in a food processor.
Pro Tip
Don’t use powdered sugar or confectioner’s sugar as it’s commonly called around the world.
Dark Brown Sugar
Since, for whatever reason, dark brown sugar is not commonly used in Portuguese baking, we were fortunate to find an excellent British made dark brown sugar product at a local expat-friendly supermarket. That being said, you should be able to can find dark brown sugar online if you can’t find it where you live.
The original Tollhouse recipe calls for the brown sugar to be packed and we packed ours before we weighed it. The flavor of our cookies reflects this step.
Eggs
While we’ve noticed that large eggs are a few grams heavier in Europe than in the United States, we’ve noticed no material impact in this recipe. In other words, our recipe calls for two large eggs in the US or two M/L eggs in European countries like Portugal.
In our experience, the precise size of the eggs makes a nominal difference in the finished product. Let us know if you find otherwise.
Baking Soda / Sodium Bicarbonate
Baking soda or Sodium Bicarbonate, as it’s known around the world, adds rise to the cookies.
We simply weighed a teaspoon of baking soda and it measured 6 grams. You could add an extra gram if you want fluffier cookies. However, 6 grams of baking soda works just fine in this recipe.
We also use 5 grams Vanilla Extract in this recipe.
Five grams doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s just the right amount. This recipe is proof that a little bit of Vanilla Extract goes a long way.
Salt
As we noted above, we love salt for the zing that it brings to chocolate chip cookies. Whether or not you love salt too, this ingredient is essential.
Fun Fact
Some chefs we know add a layer of flake salt to their finished cookies for even more zing.
