I call these mini chocolate chip cookies only because my mom and my sister make gigantic amazing chocolate chip cookies that spread all over the cookie sheet in their baking enthusiasm. For a long time, I thought those were the only chocolate chip cookies to eat. They were certainly delicious.

Then I discovered the back-of-the-chocolate-chip-bag recipe and never went back. These cookies use soda (I was afraid of soda, for no good reason other than eating large soda chunks as a 10 year old) among other things. They are no-nonsense cookies that owe their amazing taste and texture all to real butter. If you use this recipe, but substitute margarine, you will wonder why I said these are good cookies. I use butter in this recipe, and you should too.

Of course, soften the butter by letting it sit out on the counter for a few hours, or, like me, you may end up microwaving each stick for 5 second intervals, trying to soften the butter without melting it.

That’s the other thing about cookies/baking: when a recipe calls for softened butter, it needs softened butter. If you use melted runny butter you may as well throw the whole thing away because your cookies will stand no higher than a sheet of paper.

These cookies actually aren’t mini, they are more mid-sized. But no matter because if you are like me, my husband, or our friends you will eat 5 or 6 of them at once and then be glad to say you only ate 5 or 6 mini chocolate chip cookies. I mean that. I’m eating one right now.

My aunt would say that if you really want soft cookies, you need to sub half the white sugar with brown sugar, and she is right. The molasses in brown sugar definitely helps to make the cookies softer.

P.S. Funny story: I made these cookies, then threw away the empty chocolate chip bag. So I’ve been hunting my whole house looking for it so I could make sure my recipe was right. I ended up going to a few different stores searching for the same brand of chocolate chips to find my recipe. In the end, I looked at my baking shots, magnified the recipe by 1000% and read the back of the package.

So after all that searching… Here is the back-of-the-chocolate-chip-bag recipe! I’ll link the chocolate chips I use so you have no doubts. It is a useful recipe and will not let you down as long as you don’t melt the butter. Enjoy!