Tollhouse Cookie Bars

The first cookies I ever remember making are these Tollhouse cookie bars. I don’t think anything has compared to them since, and trust me I’ve done a lot of “comparing.” These cookies are simple and easy to throw together, but the variations to the recipe are endless. My mama always made them using semi-sweet chocolate chips, and halfway through the bake time, she’d run a knife through the dough to create a swirly chocolate pattern. My version includes pecans and dark chocolate chips, but you can substitute with white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, your favorite nuts, dried fruit, coconut, etc. Go crazy and clean out your pantry! Empty pantry = full tummy = happy Natalie.

Ingredients:

2-1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (1, 12-oz. pkg.) dark chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9”x13” pan with cooking spray and set it aside.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and sent this aside as well.

Beat together the butter and both sugars until thoroughly incorporated.

Add in the vanilla and eggs and beat again.

Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the egg/butter/sugar mixture and stir until well combined. Continue to add the rest of the flour mixture (1/3 at a time) until it all the flour is used. The dough will be extremely thick at this point.

Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.

Smooth the dough out evenly in the bottom of the prepared pan, and bake it for about 20 minutes or until the top of the cookies becomes golden brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool for at least 15 minutes. Once cooled, cut into bars and serve.