History of Chocolate Chip Cookies

In 1930, dietician Ruth Wakefield and her husband, Kenneth, purchased a house in Whitman, Massachusetts that had previously served as a stop during Colonial times for travelers to pay their road toll between Boston and New Bedford. The Wakefields converted the house into a lodge and named it the Toll House Inn. Ruth prepared all of the recipes for the meals served to her guests.

Over the years, the Toll House Inn became to be known for the mouth-watering desserts that Ruth Wakefield would make for her guests. One of her guests’ favorites was her Butter Drop Do cookies. It was a day in 1937 while Ruth was making a batch of her delicious Butter Drop Do cookies that she found she was out of the baker’s chocolate needed for the recipe. She decided to substitute a different chocolate thinking it would melt and mix into the batter like the baker’s chocolate. The substituted chocolate was a Nestlé Semi-Sweet Chocolate bar which she broke up into pieces and added to the batter.

Instead of melting completely, however, the chocolate pieces only softened slightly, but held their shape. This new cookie type became very popular at the Inn. Ruth Wakefield ended up making a deal with Andrew Nestlé. In exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips from Nestlé, Ruth would sell her Toll House Cookie recipe to him. Ruth’s recipe was first printed on the wrapper of the Nestlé's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar.

A couple of years later, Nestlé started packaging chocolate bits in its own bag named Nestlé Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels. Ruth’s recipe, or a variation thereof, has since been printed on every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips.

During WWII, GIs from Massachusetts who were stationed overseas shared these delicious cookies that they were receiving in their care packages with soldiers from other parts of the United States. Those soldiers wrote home asking for Toll House cookies in their care packages as well. Soon, the Wakefields were flooded with letters from all over the country asking for her Toll House Cookie recipe and the chocolate chip cookie became famous nationwide.

The Wakefields continued to operate the Toll House Inn for years, all the while making dozens and dozens of Toll House cookies for guests. They eventually retired and sold the Inn in 1966. In 1970, the building was purchased by the Saccone family who restored it to the Toll House Inn and Restaurant. Unfortunately, on New Year’s Eve 1984, the Inn was destroyed in a fire.

Cream:

1 cup butter

Add:

¾ cup brown sugar (packed)
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 [large] eggs beaten, whole

Dissolve:

1 tsp soda in
1 tsp hot water

Mix alternately with:

2 ¼ cups flour sifted with
1 tsp salt

Lastly add:

1 cup chopped nuts
2 bars Nestle's yellow label chocolate, semi-sweet, which has been cut in pieces the size of a pea.

Flavor with:

1 tsp. vanilla

Drop half teaspoons on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes in 375F oven.

Makes 100 cookies.

"At Toll House, we chill this dough overnight. When ready for baking, we roll a teaspoon of dough between palms of hands and place balls 2 inches apart on greased baking sheet. Then we press balls with finger tips to form flat rounds. This way cookies do not spread as much in the baking and they keep uniformly round. They should be brown through, and crispy, not white and hard as I have sometimes seen them."