Jane’s Go-To Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is my mom Jane’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, and it is the one I always come back to. It is simple, reliable, and it turns out to be a soft cookie every single time as long as you don’t overcook it.

When my mom was twenty, newly married, living far from home, freezing half the year, and raising two babies back-to-back with no support the one thing that saved her was cookie dough.
She made cookie dough at night and froze it so she’d have something, anything, to look forward to the next morning. It was her lifeline! Literally the only thing that got her out of bed in the morning was knowing it was waiting for her. .

I didn’t understand that kind of survival until I went through my own version of it as a new mom.
After Taggart was born, we moved to Michigan. We were far from family and friends and support (far from everything familiar honestly). Those Michigan winters were cold and gray and endless, and I fell into one of the hardest depressions of my life. I felt lonely in a way I still struggle to explain. And just like my mom, I had to find something, anything, to pull me through.
For her, it was frozen cookie dough.
For me, it was writing a murder mystery late at night, just to feel like I was creating something when everything in my real life felt heavy and impossible.
Women have always found quiet ways to survive seasons no one sees. My mom did it in a tiny Park City kitchen. I did it in a cold Michigan winter.
And if you’re doing it now, in your own way, I see you.
Here is the recipe that might save you one day.

Jane’s Life Altering Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
- Cream the butter and both sugars together. Add the vanilla and eggs and mix until everything is smooth and fully combined.
- In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add that to the butter mixture and mix. Fold in the chocolate chips until just combined.
- Scoop the dough into 2 tablespoon balls and set them on a greased or lined baking sheet. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes. Take them out before they look ready. This is the part you have to believe me on.
