Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Toll House classic and beyond. Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Inn made the chocolate chip cookie famous in the 1930s. The real story, the baking science and a recipe to try.
Fresh from the oven: Mshuang2, CC0
The Toll House story
In 1930 Ruth Wakefield and her husband Kenneth bought an old house in Whitman, Massachusetts, and turned it into the Toll House Inn, a restaurant that became famous for her cooking. Wakefield was a trained dietitian and home economics teacher, and in the 1930s she developed a crisp, buttery cookie studded with pieces of chopped semisweet chocolate.
The recipe was printed in the 1938 edition of her cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, under the name Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies. The dough used half brown and half white sugar and was chilled overnight before baking.
Accident or invention?
A popular story says the cookie was a happy accident, made when Wakefield ran out of nuts or expected the chocolate to melt. Wakefield herself later said it was deliberate: she wanted something new to serve with ice cream alongside a popular butterscotch nut cookie. Modern food writers point to her training and organised kitchen as reasons to believe her.
Chocolate had been in cookies before. Chocolate jumbles were popular in the 1880s and 1890s, and chocolate chip cookies were being sold commercially in Wisconsin by 1928. But the Toll House recipe is the one that spread nationwide, helped by a deal that let the chocolate maker Nestlé print it on its packaging. In 1997 Massachusetts named the chocolate chip cookie its official state cookie.
The science of chewy and crisp
Small changes make a big difference. Brown sugar absorbs moisture and keeps cookies soft and chewy, while white sugar makes them crisp, which is why most recipes use both. Baking soda helps cookies brown. Butter gives flavour and a thinner cookie, while shortening makes them taller and puffier.
Resting the dough lets sugar dissolve and flour hydrate, giving deeper caramel flavour and a chewier middle. Chocolate chips are often made to hold their shape in the oven, while chopped bar chocolate melts into puddles and streaks.
From inn kitchen to national favourite
By the 1970s the chocolate chip cookie was the most popular cookie in America, and entrepreneurs began building whole businesses on it, starting with Famous Amos in 1975 and followed by Mrs. Fields. Spin-offs such as cookie dough ice cream and cookie ice cream sandwiches followed.
Wakefield retired in 1966 and sold the inn, which later burned down in 1984. A roadside sign in Whitman marks the spot where America's favourite cookie became famous.
Make Chocolate Chip Cookies at home
Ingredients
- 115 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 100 g (1/2 cup packed) light brown sugar
- 50 g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 150 g (1 1/4 cups) plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 170 g (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
Method
- Beat the butter with both sugars for 2 to 3 minutes until light and creamy.
- Beat in the egg and vanilla until smooth, scraping the bowl.
- Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together, then mix them in on low speed just until combined. Stir in the chocolate.
- Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days for deeper flavour.
- Heat the oven to 190 C (375 F). Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto lined baking trays, about 5 cm apart.
- Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, until the edges are golden and the centres still look a little soft. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then move to a rack.
- Fresh from the oven: Mshuang2, CC0
- The Toll House site: Magicpiano, CC BY-SA 4.0
Text written by Chocolate Era.
