Chocolate Chip Cookie

In 1937, Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie by accident. Ruth owned the Toll House Inn where she prepared recipes and meals for her guests. Her Butter Drop Do cookies were a favorite which were served with ice cream. As she was making the cookies, she discovered she was missing one of the main ingredients: baker’s chocolate. Baker’s chocolate is unsweetened chocolate powder made from ground up cocoa beans that completely melts into the cookie recipe. Since Ruth did not have any baker’s chocolate, she used chopped up pieces of a semisweet chocolate bar, thinking that the chocolate would melt. When the cookies were done, she was surprised to learn that the chocolate pieces had not completely melted into the cookies and the chocolate chip cookie was created.

She named them Toll House Crunch Cookies after the name of her inn. She made a deal with the Nestle Company that they would put her recipe on the back of every chocolate bar they sold and in return she would get a lifetime supply of their chocolate. One chocolate bar was equal to 160 chocolate chips.

In 1941, Nestle began selling the chocolate in chip form, which Nestle refers to as morsels. In 1958, Nestle developed additional chip flavors including butterscotch, white chocolate, dark chocolate, mint chocolate, and pumpkin spice.

The recipe for her chocolate chips cookies still remains on the back of every bag of Nestle Chocolate Morsels. Chocolate chip cookies remain a favorite cookie, and 53% of Americans choose the chocolate chip cookie over peanut butter, oatmeal, or any other cookie variety.

FUN FACTS

The first chocolate chip cookie was the size of a quarter and eaten in one bite.

One quarter of all cookies baked in the United States is chocolate chip cookies.

In the United Kingdom, “cookies” refers to chocolate chip cookies and all other cookies are referred to as “biscuits.”