Mom’s Perfectly Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

June 25, 2026

This month’s recipe share is another nostalgic one, coming straight from my mom, Judy.

I definitely inherited my love of cooking from the women in my family—especially on my mom’s side, including my Grandma Jean and my Aunt Sue, who passed away in January.

I think Mom would be the first to admit she has always liked cooking well enough, but doesn’t necessarily love it quite as much as I do. Like me, though, she prefers cooking to baking—except when it comes to cookies.

We don’t care to bake pies and cakes, but cookies???? Oh yeah!

Mom has truly become known for her cookies; it’s evolved into her “thing.”

While I love trying all kinds of cookie recipes, Mom sticks to her two favorites and makes them incredibly well: Snickerdoodles and Chocolate Chip. While it’s the latter I’m featuring for you today, both recipes follow a couple of special rules she swears by:

They use Butter Flavored Crisco (!) Yep!
They come out of the oven a little sooner than you would think

Most people tend to overbake cookies. I completely agree with her approach on this one and always err on the side of taking most cookie recipes out just a hair sooner than a recipe calls for, letting them rest on the hot cookie sheet for five minutes.

Well, there you have it – the secret’s out of the bag, but here is the rest of the recipe anyway. 🙂

Making Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here’s what you need:

All-purpose flour
Baking soda
Kosher salt
Butter-Flavored Crisco
White sugar
Brown sugar
Eggs
Vanilla
Milk chocolate chips

P.S. Here are my favorite dry storage containers

Whisk the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) together in a small bowl to distribute them.

Mix the wet ingredients (Crisco, sugars, eggs, vanilla) together in a large bowl. We always used a hand mixer, but you could also use a stand mixer.

I just cream them all at once. Be sure the Crisco is at room temperature. At first, you may see small bits, like it seems it’s not mixing completely, but just give it another 30 seconds, and it should turn out nice and light and fluffly-like.

Add half the flour and mix well. Add the rest of the flour, but right before it’s completely mixed in, add the chocolate chips. Letting them mix with a little flour can help distribute them more evenly throughout the batter.

It is a bit of a dry dough, but it will come together.

Time to Bake

I like to use a cookie scoop these days. I remember scooping and hand-rolling when I was a kid. This recipe makes 3 dozen cookies.

Into a preheated 350-degree oven for 8-10 minutes. This is where it’s important to pay attention. Several factors can affect how long you’ll go, including your oven, the type of cookie sheet you’re using, and whether you’re using a Silpat mat or parchment paper. The most important thing is to consider how they look.

Take them out when they look like they’ve just started to set (see the photo on the left). I’ve never gone more than 9-10 minutes. They will not look browned quite yet.

Leave them on the hot cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes. As they cool, you’ll start to see them form more cracks around the edges and the color turn a little more golden (see the photo on the right).

At this point, you can move them to a cookie sheet. The Crisco shortening definitely gives them a different texture than a lot of cookies. I’ve never met a person who didn’t love them!

Nestle Toll House

I’m pretty sure Mom said she just got this recipe off the back of a Nestle Toll House chocolate chip bag; however, the Nestle recipe called for just butter, not butter-flavored Crisco.

I asked mom about the Crisco, and she said she once heard a chef on the radio say that, for the best cookies, you should use Butter-Flavored Crisco, and that’s what she’s stuck with ever since!

I looked it up years ago, and I think the Nestle recipe may have called for 2 1/4 cups of flour, but Mom’s recipe uses 2 1/2 cups. Not sure about that minor discrepancy, but it works!