How to Bake Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies by Weight

Feeling nostalgic, we decided to bake chocolate chip cookies for a dinner party with expat friends. How hard could it be?

We quickly realized that the original Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe uses American measurements and ingredients. It makes sense since the recipe was invented in Whitman, Massachusetts, back in 1939. However, the recipe format can be a barrier to cookie bliss for people who don’t measure and use food the American way.

We’re fortunate that we have measuring implements that we brought from home. However, we still had challenges since some European products come in different packaging than in the United States. Plus, there’s that pesky metric system, which every country except the US seems to use.

While lamenting over the challenges as we ate the cookies that we ultimately baked, our little group agreed that it would have been so much easier if we had found a recipe with ingredients measured by weight, particularly in grams. We had looked hard for a chocolate chip recipe measured by weight but couldn’t find one online.

We also agreed that other expats must feel the same way. Fast forward a few weeks and we constructed a version of the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe that lists every ingredient, except for the eggs, in grams. And then, a year later, we updated our recipe to make it even better.

And the best part? Not only does this recipe make baking easier, but the by weight approach also creates consistently great cookies whether you’re in Europe or America.

Our recipe is so easy to follow.

You don’t have to worry about measuring the flour with a measuring cup. You don’t have to wonder if you’ve properly packed the brown sugar. All you have to do is weigh the ingredients.

And so long as you use a fine salt like Morton’s and don’t forget to take the cookies out of the oven, you should achieve ideal results every time you follow it.

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 effort since some of the ingredients, namely dark brown sugar and chocolate chips, aren’t always easy to find. Surprisingly, bags of Nestlé’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.

As we noted above, Nestlé’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.

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.

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 65°F/18°C before using it. You may want to start with colder butter if your room is warm. Also, make sure not to overmix your butter or your cookies will spread and flatten.

Granulated sugar is readily available throughout most of the world. If you can’t find white granulated sugar, you could use a coarse sugar. However, you would need to grind it in a food processor.

Pro Tip
Don’t use powdered sugar or confectioners’ sugar as it’s commonly called around the world.

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 find dark brown sugar online if you can’t find it where you live.

The original Toll House 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.

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 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.

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.

Essentially, like countless people before us, we typically follow the legendary Toll House recipe when we bake chocolate chip cookies at home. Nuts are optional in that recipe and we’ve chosen not to add them to our version since we’re pure chocolate chip cookie people at heart.

Logically, the first step of our recipe is to weigh out the ingredients. However, if you have a good kitchen scale, you could conceivably zero out your weight after adding each ingredient to your respective mixing bowls. We don’t recommend this method but it would work.

Buy a kitchen scale from Amazon if you don’t already own the versatile kitchen tool.

Before you start, note that our recipe recommends refrigerating the cookie mixture overnight before baking the cookies.

While you could bake your cookies immediately after making your dough, we encourage you to give your cookie mixture some time to rest in the refrigerator. We recommend chilling the dough for at least 12 hours or overnight (maximum of 24 hours). This extra step improves the flavor and texture of the cookies.

The first step is to place the flour, baking soda and salt in a small mixing bowl and whisk these dry ingredients.

Next, place the brown and white sugars along with the butter and vanilla extract into a large high-sided mixing bowl.

Use an electric mixer to mix the sugars, butter and vanilla extract until these ingredients are just incorporated. Be careful not to overmix.

Add the two eggs, one at a time until they’re incorporated too. Again, be careful not to overmix.

Gradually add the flour, baking soda and salt mixture until just combined. Yet again, be careful not to overmix the cookie dough.

Once the dough is mixed, gradually add the chocolate chips. Mix them into the cookie dough with a rubber spatula or large spoon. We like to use a blue rubber spatula but the color doesn’t matter.

While you may want to bake the cookies right away, the better approach is to refrigerate the dough overnight. After you do, it’s time to bake the cookies!

But first, preheat your convection oven to 325°F 165°C or your conventional oven to 350°F / 175°C.

Pro Tips
You may want to let the dough warm slightly so it’s more pliable but no more than 5 to 10 minutes. You should always use a rigid spoon to lay out the cookies. Also, if you’re baking in multiple batches, make sure to place the mixture in the refrigerator after laying down each tray. (If you have room, you can also place the cookies on trays and refrigerate them before baking.)

Use a tablespoon to ‘drop’ the cookies on a baking sheet. We like to cover our pan with a parchment sheet and you should do the same.

Oven sizes vary so the numbers of cookies you’ll be able to bake on each sheet will vary too. In the USA, you may be able to fit 12 cookies (or more) on a half sheet pan but baking sheets are smaller in Europe.

Pro Tip
Placing a sheet of parchment paper on the pan is not necessary but it makes the pan easier to clean.

Bake the cookies in your preheated oven for 8 to 12 minutes until the cookies are browned to your liking. We know that may seem like a large spread of time, but every oven varies. We have a convection oven which tends to bake the cookies faster.

In other words, KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR COOKIES!

Once the cookies are baked, remove them from the oven and let them cool for about 5 minutes. When they’ve cooled sufficiently, remove them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Some people like their cookies hot out of the oven and others prefer to eat them when they’re cool. Only you can decide when your cookies are ready. It’s also up to you to decide if you want to dunk them into milk or not.

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