National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

Today is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, so we decided to focus on the ubiquitous American favorite as the topic of today’s blog post.  Chocolate Chip Cookies are a relatively recent invention, coming about in 1930 when Ruth Wakefield supposedly accidentally invented the cookie.  According to Nestlé, who purchased Wakefield’s recipe in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate, Wakefield was mixing up a batch of chocolate cookies when she realized that the baking chocolate she was used to using wasn’t stocked in her kitchen so she substituted chocolate bars that she cut into pieces.  Instead of melting into the batter like she expected, the chocolate chunks held their shape and a national favorite was born.

Ruth Wakefield, Inventor of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

George Boucher, a former employee of the Toll House Inn where Wakefield was a proprietor, claims a different story.  He insisted that Wakefield, an accomplished cook and baker must have known the melting properties of chocolate, so the Nestlé story had to be a fabrication.  He said that he saw the enormous stand mixer that Wakefield used to mix her dough cause massive vibrations in the shop on multiple occasions.  He theorized that the chocolate bars must’ve been on a shelf above the mixer, and the vibrations knocked them into the dough, where the mixer broke them into chunks that were mixed throughout.  He claims that Wakefield returned to the kitchen and saw the chocolate chip cookie dough and wanted to throw it out because of the chunks, but he persuaded her to try baking them anyway as a kitchen experiment.  The result was the first batch of Nestlé Tollhouse Cookies.

Eventually, due to some legal issues, Nestlé lost the rights to the “Tollhouse” trademark, but many still refer to the cookies as such.  Even today, if you pick up a bag of Nestlé chocolate chips, every single one will have some kind of variation of Wakefield’s “Toll House Cookie” recipe on the back.

From a 1940s era Nestle Bag

When Wakefield sold the rights of her recipe to Nestlé and the common person had access, Chocolate Chip Cookies became nearly synonymous with “American.”  People have become so fond of these cookies over the years that Massachusetts decided to instate Chocolate Chip Cookies as the Official State Cookie!  

Pennsylvania attempted to follow suit with two bills (Senate Bill 320 and House Bill 2479), but the Nazareth Sugar Cookie has been in the argument since the first bill was introduced in 1997.  It is still a matter of legal debate to this day!  

We can’t really judge people for getting so excited about these cookies, as they are one of our favorites to bake AND to eat.  In fact, ours are consistently a best-seller in the shop.  We have a hard time keeping up, but we love to make what you crave! 

From our family to yours,

Cheers!  (With a glass of milk and cookie in hand, of course)