Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies

The “secret” in these chocolate chip cookies isn’t an ingredient. It’s the creaming. Beat the margarine alone until it goes pale and almost white, then add the sugars and beat again until the mixture is fluffy and the color of buttercream. That extended creaming aerates the fat, which traps air bubbles that the heat of the oven expands, giving these cookies their light, slightly cakey lift along with the classic chocolate chip flavor.

What separates this from a generic Toll House clone is the cooking time: 7 minutes at 350°F (175°C). Pull them when they’re barely brown at the edges, with the centers still looking slightly underdone. They finish setting on the hot tray and stay soft for days.

The walnuts are doing more than crunch duty. Their oils round out the buttery sweetness, and chopped fine they distribute evenly so every bite carries a little nuttiness. The full 7 ounces of chocolate chips, slightly more than the standard 6-ounce bag, makes these noticeably chocolatier without losing the cookie structure.

Pro Tips

• Soften the margarine to cool room temperature, not melty. Soft enough to dent with a finger but not greasy is the right state for proper creaming.
• Use a stand mixer or strong hand mixer. Hand creaming for the full pale-and-fluffy stage takes 8 to 10 minutes; a mixer does it in 3 to 4.
• Don’t overbake. Pull at “barely brown” even if they look slightly raw in the centers. Two extra minutes turns soft cookies into hard ones.
• Toast the walnuts in a dry skillet before chopping. Three minutes wakes up their oils and makes a real difference in the finished cookie.

Variations

• Use real butter in place of margarine for a richer, more complex flavor; the cookies will spread slightly more.
• Swap walnuts for chopped pecans or macadamia nuts, or skip the nuts entirely for a classic chips-only cookie.
• Stir in a half teaspoon of cinnamon and a quarter teaspoon of espresso powder to deepen the chocolate without making them taste like coffee.