Grandma Trower’s Chocolate Chip Squares

Grandma Trower and one of my recent attempts at the “pan cookie.”

I can’t remember when I first discovered the Nestlé Toll House pan cookie recipe, but I do remember the realization it brought about. It was likely when I started using the recipe on the bag of chocolate chips to make cookies for my husband and young family. Or perhaps it was when my young daughters first helped me whip up a batch for a holiday or birthday celebration. To say it was an “a-ha” moment would be an understatement.

Those were Grandma Trower’s chocolate chip squares.

When I was six years old, my parents moved my mom’s mother into a single-wide mobile home just behind our double-wide. Newly widowed, Grandma Trower was grateful to be living so close to our family and to be free from the responsibility of tending her own small farm. At under five feet tall and around 70 pounds, Grandma was always diminutive in stature, but food was definitely one of her love languages.

My mom would often tell me about the huge breakfasts and dinners—what most of us “city people” today call lunch—Grandma Trower made when she was growing up. Homemade biscuits every day, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetables from her garden, and some killer cinnamon rolls. Leftovers became lunches for Mom and her siblings as they attended a one-room schoolhouse not far from where they lived.

One day, not long after Grandma moved next door, I entered the front door of her trailer to the unmistakable aroma of chocolate chip cookies. The kitchen was right at the front of the house and so small that the heat from the oven noticeably warmed the entire room, regardless of the season.

I can still see Grandma bending down gingerly to open the oven door, her back slightly twisted and bowed by osteoporosis. As she pulled out a square pan and placed it on a trivet on the counter, I couldn’t help but be surprised.

It wasn’t cookies after all!

The golden-brown crust was dotted with chocolate chips that created dimples in the surface. Around the pan, the edges were slightly darker and, I assumed, a little crunchier. Although I wanted to try them right away, Grandma let me know they needed to cool before we could cut them.

We likely passed the time with one of our favorite activities—playing dominoes on the big overstuffed couch in her living room. She sat at one end and I at the other, with the dominoes spread out end-to-end between us. The decor was unmistakably ’70s—green sculpted carpet, brown wood paneling, and harvest-gold drapes. But the hours I spent with Grandma were timeless.

She was my main playmate as I grew up, but also my mentor and confidant. I never felt like a little girl with her. She treated me as an equal and provided stability and comfort when my parents had other things to attend to on the farm. She spoke softly but could be firm when needed, and I never doubted her wisdom. One of her mischievous grins, hinting at an unspoken secret between us, could make me feel ten feet tall.

And special.

Her chocolate chip squares became a sort of security blanket for me. Had a rough day at school? Got in trouble with Mom and Dad? Was Roger (my older brother and only sibling) too busy with friends or school to do something with me? Grandma Trower’s chocolate chip squares always came to the rescue.

I even remember her having a batch ready for me when I came home from college on many weekends. Others were welcome to eat them, but I always knew she made them for ME.

My love of chocolate chip “anything” continues to this day, but I never even considered trying to make Grandma’s chocolate chip squares myself. I never thought to ask her for the recipe. After she passed away in 1992, I assumed the delicacy and tradition I so closely associated with my childhood had died with her.

Until the day I turned over the familiar yellow bag of Nestlé Toll House chocolate chips and saw the “Toll House Pan Cookie” recipe.

I couldn’t believe it.

This was her secret recipe, hiding in plain sight all these years.

I’ve made chocolate chip cookies from the recipe periodically, but I’ve only tried the pan version a handful of times. Although I’m confident my process and ingredients were almost identical to hers, Grandma’s chocolate chip squares always tasted a lot better.

And as I get older, I think I understand why.