Dark Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies with Orange.

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Brent picked out this "perfect" cookie to photograph.

 

I don't know how many people know this, but Toll House is one of my advertising clients. How lucky am I? Yep, I can ask for packages of morsels any time I want. For "research," of course. Purely for research.

But even if they weren't a client of mine, I've got to admit that there really isn't a better chocolate chip cookie recipe than the one on the back of the Toll House package. I mean, let's face it…they've had 81 years to perfect it. (Read the Toll House story here.) Believe me, I've tried to get all fancy with cookie recipes. But I still haven't beat that recipe. Doesn't mean I'll quit trying.

Here's one variation of their recipe that I made recently that I felt actually added to the original recipe rather than subtracted from it. It combines three of my favorite dessert ingredients: dark chocolate, hazelnuts and orange zest. The only downside? There aren't dark chocolate Toll House morsels on the market. Yet. I'm working on it. Gotta make that one happen. It will probably take lots of "research." Wink.

To make these cookies follow the original Toll House recipe (found here) with these added directions:

Take two cups of whole, shelled hazelnuts, spread them on a cookie sheet, and roast in 375 degree oven. If your hazelnuts have skins, roast until skins blister and turn a deeper brown. (Begin checking for done-ness at five minutes. Check every minute afterward to prevent nuts from burning.) If your nuts don't have skins, roast until surface is a slightly deeper brown and the oven is filled with scent. Once fully roasted, remove nuts from oven. If the nuts have skins, pour into a clean dishtowel. Gather the towel of nuts into a satchel and roll around on counter, pressing down with hands. As the nuts rub against the towel, their skins will be removed.

Roughly chop cooled nuts in food processor or coffee grinder. You should wind up with just over a cup of chopped nuts.

Replace the Toll House morsels in the recipe with an equal weight of dark chocolate bar, chopped into morsel-sized pieces. (Until, of course, I get my way and dark chocolate morsels are on the shelves.)

Combine ingredients as per the Toll House recipe. After adding the broken dark chocolate and nut pieces, stir in the zest from two oranges (One, if you don't want the citrus flavor to be too strong.) Bake according to directions.

Maybe it's not better than the original recipe. But give me time. I've got till I'm 82-years-old to top it.

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