CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE, USA

20TH CENTURY

 

OTHER NAMES: Toll House Cookie

 

A chocolate chip cookie is a drop cookie that originated in the United States and features chocolate chips as its distinguishing ingredient. It can be soft, chewy, crunchy, or crispy style depending on the ingredients and baking time.

 

The chocolate chip cookie was an accidental invention in 1930 by Ruth Graves Wakefield, who ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. It happened when Wakefield discovered that she was out of baker's chocolate when she was about to make cookies, so she substituted broken pieces of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate, expecting it to melt and absorb into the dough to create chocolate cookies. However, it turns out to be the first chocolate chip cookies that she called them "Toll House Crunch Cookies." [1]

 

It became extremely popular that the recipe was featured on newspaper and radio. [2] Soon enough, Andrew Nestle and Ruth Wakefield decided to come up with an agreement: Nestle would print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its package, and Wakefield would be given a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate. [3]

 

Chocolate chip cookies also became wartime soldier’s favorites and were common to ship them to American soldiers overseas. Due to large volume of consumptions in the US and overseas, Chocolate chip cookies eventually became the most popular dessert in the country. [4]

 

Today chocolate chip cookies are still among the top cookies, and there are other popular variations include recipes with different types of chocolate as well as additional ingredients such as nuts or oatmeal.

 

BASIC INGREDIENTS:

Butter, brown sugar, white sugar, semi-sweet chocolate chip, egg, flour, vanilla extract, baking powder

 

Optional: oatmeal, nuts, M&M chocolate, other types of chocolate, cocoa powder, peanut butter, milk

 

**Read Jon Michaud’s article, “Sweet Morsels: A History of the Chocolate-Chip Cookie” for more details from invention to today.