The delectable, delicious, go-to favorite cookie of Americans is undisputedly the chocolate chip cookie. Although recipe books offered versions of cookies made with shaved or melted baker’s chocolate as early as 1896, the recipe we know and love today is credited to Ruth Graves Wakefield and dates back to 1938.
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The Toll House Inn: Where the Magic Began
A graduate of Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts – a precursor to culinary school – Wakefield and her husband Kenneth opened the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, in 1930, during the Great Depression. Despite the dreadful economy, the restaurant was a huge success.
Located between Boston and Cape Cod, the Toll House Inn got its name because it was actually used as a toll house as early as 1709, charging travelers to use the road from Boston to New Bedford. Wakefield cooked for her guests using her own and some of her grandmother’s recipes. Her food became so popular that the Toll House’s dining room quickly expanded from seven tables to 60. The Inn became one of the most famous restaurants in New England. Many celebrities visited often, including Joseph Kennedy, Cole Porter, Gloria Swanson, Joe DiMaggio, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
The Happy Accident
Kenneth and Ruth Wakefield were both trained chefs, but Ruth, in particular, loved to create decadent new desserts for her guests. Myth has it that she invented chocolate chip cookies by accident. The most popular version of the myth claims that she had decided to bake a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies, a popular old colonial recipe, but discovered she was out of Baker’s chocolate. She chopped up a block of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate and added the pieces to the Butter Drop Do dough. Her so-called “accident” was a culinary blockbuster in the making.
Ruth Wakefield would never have called it an accident herself; she claims she knew exactly what she was doing. She named her creation “Toll House Chocolate Cookie Crunch” in the 1938 edition of her cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes.
Along with well-known guests to her restaurant, Wakefield’s chocolate chip cookies became famous during World War II when soldiers from Massachusetts stationed overseas shared the cookies, they received in care packages shipped out from the Toll House Inn. It wasn’t long before hundreds of soldiers were writing, asking that Toll House cookies be sent in care packages to troops from all the states. Ruth Wakefield was inundated with letters from around the world requesting the recipe.
Making (Air) Waves
The real boost to fame came when Toll House cookies were featured on the radio show Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air in 1939, making the recipe available across the nation. As the recipe grew in popularity, Nestlé noticed soaring sales of their semi-sweet chocolate bar, which had to be manually chipped into small pieces (hence the name chocolate chips).
Nestlé approached Wakefield for permission to print her recipe on the bar wrapper in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. Nestlé also began offering their semi-sweet chocolate bar with tiny score marks to make it easier to break into chips. Wakefield’s recipe was renamed “Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.”
Chips Off the Old Block
In 1940, Nestlé introduced chocolate morsels, the little round chips that made baking chocolate chip cookies so much easier – no more chopping involved.
Because of the ‘chocolate for life’ agreement with Ruth Wakefield, Nestlé owned the rights to her recipe and took all profits from the Toll House cookies until 1983 when discrepancies were found in the original contract. Nestlé lost their exclusive rights to the trademark. The name Nestlé Toll House is rarely seen anymore, unless you purchase a bag of their semi-sweet chips with Wakefield’s recipe still printed on it.
Ruth’s Legacy
Kenneth and Ruth Wakefield retired in 1967, and, unfortunately, their famous Toll House restaurant burned down in 1984. A Wendy’s now occupies the land, but inside, there’s a Toll House Museum with photographs of the couple and some of their famous guests, along with a commemorative plaque from Nestlé.
On July 9, 1997, Massachusetts named the chocolate chip cookie the official state cookie (Pennsylvania also claims it as their state cookie), but unofficially it’s America’s favorite cookie with many delicious variations. Easily mass-produced, chocolate chip cookies have launched several successful companies, such as Mrs. Fields and Famous Amos. Chocolate chip cookies account for half the cookies baked in the United States today with seven billion consumed annually.
Ruth Wakefield’s original recipe called for chopped nuts, and it was a crisp, quarter-size cookie served with ice cream. Nowadays, Americans prefer thick, chewy, huge cookies, usually without nuts. Many of the younger generations have never heard them called Nestlé Toll House cookies, but these delectable sweets are now considered comfort food, a staple of the American diet. We have Ruth Wakefield’s happy “accident” to thank for our favorite dessert.
If you’re craving a perfectly moist and chewy gourmet cookie but don’t want all of the hassle that goes with baking them – or you know someone else who could use a little chocolate chip cookie gift love – Chocolate Shipped Cookies is your new best friend. We can ship chocolate chip cookie gift packages anywhere in the country. Honor Ruth’s brilliant culinary creation; eat more cookies.