On the "fudge guy" who was using the recipe from the marshmallow container, or the Toll House cookies winning 2 of the top spots: there's a lot more to good results than just the recipe. Equipment, skill, the idiosyncratic ways you don't follow the recipe or fill in where it's underspecified... Don't necessarily give in to the temptation to ascribe the phenomenon merely to irrationality or sentiment.
Plus, it must be said, the Toll House recipe is pretty darn good. Not what I use myself but sometimes the classics are classics for a reason.
Oddly enough, the toll house recipe was our secret family recipe. It was traded for a lifetime supply of chocolate (and the publicity of inventing a beloved staple).
Assuming poster is a relative of Ruth Graves Wakefield..his user profile seems to match this story.
"On March 20, 1939, Wakefield gave Nestlé the right to use her cookie recipe and the Toll House name. In a bargain that rivals Peter Minuit’s purchase of Manhattan, the price was a dollar—a dollar that Wakefield later said she never received (though she was reportedly given free chocolate for life and was also paid by Nestlé for work as a consultant)."
Totally accidentally shilling for SE right now, but I learned a bunch of really cool tricks for cookies from an analysis about the different variables in cookies [1] that basically let me basically "build" my own secret recipe. Stuff like browning the butter before mixing it into the dough, resting dough overnight, using precise mixes of egg/flour, using chopped chocolate instead of chips, etc.
Kenji López-Alt alt has a really good book too called Food Lab, taught me all about sous vide in a cooler (which led me down the road to making steaks that are better than you get at a restaurant every single night).
Agreed, that book is great. I keep pushing off getting a real sous vide setup because the cooler is 'good enough'.
Last year I went to a fancy steak house in Las Vegas, and my thought was that I prefer my own steak. I was surprised, since I assume that restaurants have access to better cuts and can age it better. I mean, it was a fine steak, but I preferred my own.
I have been a firm believer in my own steaks for a number of years since I got my Big Green Egg. Picked up a sous vide circulator in January and it is AMAZING!
I have a BGE as well! I got the steel plate-setter for searing and it's incredible. But TBH, I often just use a skillet and our stovetop for finishing.
A couple secret-recipe idiosyncrasies are legend among those handed down in my family. For example, wherever grandma's recipes say "a spoon of sugar", she was actually using a ladle.
There's a recipe my mom got from a friend of my grandmother - that friend had to actually make the cookies to figure out the recipe, because the whole thing was phrased in terms of a green bowl full of flour and a blue bowl full of sugar and of course my mom didn't have the same bowls my grandmother's friend did.
there's a lot more to good results than just the recipe. Equipment, skill, the idiosyncratic ways you don't follow the recipe or fill in where it's underspecified
This is important. My mother-in-law apparently made the best bread, yet despite my wife having both the recipe and having watched/helped her mother bake that bread several times she has never been able to replicate it. Also, my sister and I were both given exactly the same 'family' cookie recipe from our grandmother (she got it from a newspaper) and our cookies turn out quite different.
Our chocolate chip cookies were like this. Toll House recipe, except: 1/2 white flour, 1/2 wheat flour; 1/2 butter, 1/2 shortening; double vanilla; extra chopped pecans. Although probably a big unmentioned determinant of quality is ensuring the cookies are consistently the right size relative to cooking time and temperature, which is difficult to describe; IIRC the bag just says "spoonfuls of dough".
My mom made Toll House cookies as her "go to" dessert for pot-lucks &c. Everyone always asked her for the recipe and then didn't believe her when she said it was from Nestle chocolate chips bag.
The only thing she did that was at all unusual was to use an oven thermometer; she found that ovens would be up to 20 degrees off from their set-point.
I sometimes make tablet, a Scottish variation on fudge, and although the recipe is simple one of the most significant variables is the stirring once it's cooked. You need a very strong arm and patience to keep mixing as it crystallises, that's one of the 'secrets'
Indeed, my mother (unsurprisingly) uses exactly the same recipe as my grandmother did for chocolate chip cookies (I suspect it also came from the side of a chocolate chip bag). The cookies turned out very differently, however, depending on who made them.
Oooh - we have this. Where some of my family members refuse to include the salt, or prefer butter that melts like crazy, and they get harder, flatter versions of the cookies. My aunt (who married a chemist) pointed out how the salt actually means something, and I started including it again, and the cookies got so much better (in my opinion.)
Butter handling is key in my own chocolate chip cookies, I've found. Let it soften too much, or overbeat the batter, and you'll end up with Frisbees. Ideally you want to cream the butter and sugars until just combined; they'll get more thoroughly mixed as you add flour and other ingredients.
My mom has a box of cards with recipes on them. These are preprinted cards to handwrite on, but they have blanks for the name of the recipe, who you got it from, and how many it serves. One of them is the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe, but it says it's from my aunt.
Even the way you stir has an effect on the result in confectionery...
Making emulsions consistently is hard process science. Sometimes even dispersion is not what you want.
Picking right cake form or cookie size is critical too as it changes water evaporation.
Not a direct reply to you, but on the topic of the Toll House recipe, and on experimentation - I am lactose intolerant. I rely heavily on Smart Balance as one of few margarine products that doesn't contain dairy and actually behaves and tastes like butter. With the Toll House recipe (that I once believed was my mom's secret family recipe), I'm able to do a perfect 1-1 swap of butter/Smart Balance, and replace milk chocolate chips with Enjoy Life chocolate chips, and those are damn delicious cookies that won't upset your tummy.
Not to be that guy, but if you have that much if a reaction to butter, you are probably allergic to milk proteins rather than lactose intolerant. Butter (and most cheese) is very low in lactose. Of course, everyone is different (I'm lactose intolerant myself, so I avoid milk and cottage / ricotta cheese, but can eat butter and curd cheeses)
I don't think my original comment was the place to elaborate on the various processes I took to identify my intolerance! However, suffice it to say that I can consume some low-lactose items such as hard/dry cheeses with minimal effects, but when I cook or bake with butter, my body seems to react with some mild aversion. The problem, in this specific case, might be the massive quantity of chocolate chip cookies I tend to consume...
Plus, it must be said, the Toll House recipe is pretty darn good. Not what I use myself but sometimes the classics are classics for a reason.