Chocolate Chip Cookies: A Family Tradition
Who doesn’t LOVE a warm, soft, chewy, straight-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie??! Chocolate chip cookies rank right up there in my top ten foods. I bet you are thinking this post is all about a chocolate chip cookie recipe, aren’t you?
You can get the recipe at the end of this post and I hope you thoroughly enjoy it! However, this post is primarily about a treasured family tradition that organically transpired from our love of chocolate chip cookies.
Establishing family traditions in your home is so important when it comes to creating a loving home environment. It will enhance your family’s love for their home and love for their family. One of my goals as a mom is to create a home where my family feels loved and loves to be, now, and for years to come.
How A Chocolate Chip Cookie Became a Family Tradition
I have been baking this chocolate chip cookie recipe for 30-plus years. I have built a reputation for our chocolate chip cookies and, truth be told, I kind of LOVE it!!! These yummy bites of deliciousness are a staple in our family and make an entrance at almost every get-together at our home.
Origin of our Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
In all honesty, the recipe is quite simple in its makeup. It’s just a slight tweak of the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe you find on the Tollhouse semi-sweet chips bag.
I’m not one to play with recipes too much but I felt it needed a little something and so I made some minor adjustments and this recipe came into being. It’s pretty fail-safe, but sometimes a little tweak has to be made and a little extra flour has to be added to get the right consistency. I promise with a little practice you can master it!
The density of the cookie can change depending on how much flour you use. Most times it is an honest 2 1/2 cups of flour. But every so often if its warm or the butter is extra soft I need to add a little bit of extra flour. They can be fluffy or a little flatter. I love them fluffy. Hubby loves them flat.
In both cases, they are pretty good if I do say so myself so it just depends on how you like it. The two ingredients I would recommend not messing with are Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips and REAL butter. These ingredients are vital and I encourage you to use them.
Making Memories
You might be thinking how do family traditions and a chocolate chip cookie recipe go together? Let me tell you!
Friends and Our Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
We are blessed to have sweet memories with special friends that involve our cookies. Our very dear friends the Robinsons, have five beautiful girls and live in Kansas. They visited us in Michigan and then Ohio every year for 17 years. Our house was a good stopping point on their long trip to and from Kansas. These visits were always a highlight of our summer.
Often they would roll up in the middle of the night and quietly come in. No matter what time they arrived chocolate chip cookies were on the island waiting for them. They are a favorite of Uncle Charlie’s. He might be my biggest cookie fan 😘.
These are lifelong friends and we’ve seen each other through good times and bad. Our children lovingly call them Aunt Judi and Uncle Charli and they are family to us.
We have maintained a strong friendship over the past 40 years. Charlie married my husband and me 34 years ago. What a blessing when our two sons asked Uncle Charlie to do their weddings.
One of Charlie and Judi’s daughters started her own baking business and it was so fun when she added my chocolate chip cookie recipe to her menu. She even called them Aunt Kimmy’s Chocolate Chip Cookies😊
Sports and Our Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Soccer
We are a soccer family. My husband played soccer in college. Two of our boys played soccer through their college years and our daughter played in high school. I’ve watched countless soccer games over 32 years and it has been an absolute pleasure with a little bit of angst. If you have kids in sports you know what I mean😜!
We have a family text and often soccer is the topic of conversation. One of my favorite memories is watching our two boys walk out of the stadium where their respective teams played each other. The University of Cincinnati and Xavier University in Cincinnati. One as a coach and the other as a player. See the pictures below.
Water Polo
Our other son played water polo and we loved bringing his teammates’ cookies as well. He currently coaches girls’ water polo and I’ve had the pleasure of bringing them cookies.
Sports have provided some of our fondest family memories throughout the years. Our two soccer-playing boys had the privilege of playing on very competitive high school and club teams which took us all over the country.
I used to bring cookies for the boys after the games. It became a tradition. When they reached the playoffs for each game they would advance I would bake cookies.
All the Way to States
At one in particular the boys won a big game. Our son scored the winning goal and the crowd went nuts. After the game, we found Josh at the fence to hug and congratulate him. I handed him the cookies. He turned, held them up, and excitedly offered them to his teammates.
The response is one I will never forget. The boys came running; hopping over benches and shoes and people to get to the cookies. It makes me smile as I think about it to this day. If you couldn’t tell, feeding others is one of my love languages…lol. In Josh’s senior year, the cookies made it all the way to the State Championship. I like to think that I helped them win ;-).
These are precious and cherished memories and I love that our chocolate chip cookies have a little part.
Let’s Party
Chocolate chip cookies were at every grad party, pool party, birthday party, and sleepover, and had to be made on every snow day. What is a snow day without hot chocolate and warm chocolate chip cookies?
Here’s the best part. They are incredibly easy to make and take no time at all. My four kids mastered the art of making them which makes this mama’s heart sing!
A Blessing
One of the things God wants us to do in this life is to be a blessing to others. I have loved blessing others with my cookies and, quite honestly, I might receive the bigger blessing because I get to watch others enjoy them. Blessed to be a blessing.
Our children are adults now and hubby and I are empty nesters. I make cookies a lot less often. If it were up to me, I would eat chocolate chip cookies every day. They are definitely in my top ten favorite foods. Unfortunately, my hips cannot tolerate this indulgence any longer. 🤷♀️
Baking Cookies for Others
Making meals for new mamas and friends in need is something I get the privilege of doing. Often times I will add chocolate chip cookies for dessert.
We had our first MOPS meeting this past week and I baked cookies for the girls at my table. The leftovers were divvied up for each mom to take home to her family.
I’m also a realtor and If I sell you a house, you will absolutely receive a box of chocolate chip cookies in your welcome home basket!!
In Conclusion
I love the memories we have created around our chocolate chip cookie recipe. These are memories I cherish especially teaching all of my children how to bake them. It will stay with me forever and I hope with them too!
Chocolate chip cookies are a true tradition in our home. This tradition didn’t start intentionally. That being said, traditions often begin by doing the same thing over and over again.
I have learned over the years that touching my children’s senses at home has had a huge impact on their feelings of home. I want to encourage you to be intentional about touching your family’s senses.
This is one way for you to create special memories of home. Touching their sense of taste and smell with cookies or anything you bake or cook will bring their minds back to their childhood and remind them of you and of home.
I foresee chocolate chip cookies being a family tradition for the rest of our lives. Perhaps even longer as the tradition lives on in the lives of my children and their children.
I look forward to the day when I get to bake chocolate chip cookies with my grandchildren. My oldest grandson is 2 1/2 so it won’t be long now. Leaving this legacy would give me joy. The thought of them remembering GiGi every time they bake chocolate chip cookies makes me smile.
What are Your Family Traditions?
My hope is you have been inspired to create special traditions and memories with your own family. Start to think about touching your child’s or grandchild’s senses. Be intentional about creating memories throughout their childhood. And even all the better if they are memories of home.
We have built traditions in our family and today I loved sharing one of our faves. Will chocolate chip cookies be your thing too? Honestly, this would make me happy if it were 😘. But it’s okay if not!
For your family, it could be dance parties or camping, or movie nights! Whatever it is, I would love to hear about your traditions. Just shoot me an email on the contact me page.
Thanks for letting me share our tradition and love of chocolate chip cookies. Enjoy and Bon Appetite!
Much Love~Kim💗
