It seems the history of the chocolate chip cookie is very similar to the current state of the chocolate chip cookie recipe. We can all agree on the basics, but the details are subject to interpretation.
Some sources claim that Ruth Wakefield, owner and chef at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, invented the cookies when she was looking for a way to jazz up her butter drop cookies. Another source claims she expected the chocolate pieces to melt into the cookie completely and turn it into more of a chocolate cookie. Another source claims she knew what she was doing the whole time.
Whatever Ms. Wakefield’s intention, the cookie invention is firmly set at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Mass sometime between 1936 and 1938. Ms. Wakefield and her husband opened the inn in 1930. According to the forward in her own cookbook, the sight had originally been at the location of a toll house where passengers ate and horses “were changed” on the way from Boston to New Bedford. The house was a halfway point on the road and the point where the toll was collected for traveling the road. Wikipedia disagrees, so we’ll leave it alone. Whatever the origin of the name, the Wakefield’s purchased the home in 1930 and used their mutual dream of owning an ‘eating place’ into the Inn.
Ms. Wakefield had been a home economics teacher at the high school before marrying and turned her interest in cooking into serving meals at the Inn. Her cooking was so popular, her cookbook, originally published in 1930, went through 39 publishings. The 1938 version of Toll House Tried and True Recipes is the first copy to feature the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie. Let’s assume the recipe had been created the same year.
It wasn’t until World War II that the cookie gained national fame. During the war, care packages were sent abroad to soldiers. The care packages from the state of Massachusetts must have carried an inordinate amount of Toll House Cookies because soon soldiers from other parts of the country were writing home and asking for the cookies. Ms. Wakefield became overrun with letters asking for the recipe. Nestle also saw a spike in sales and worked with Ms. Wakefield to publish the recipe on the package – her payment? Chocolate for life. The recipe is still on the chocolate chip package to this day.
The original recipe is not EXACLTY what you see on the modern package. Who knows when it changed, but the OG recipe includes a splash of hot water. As copied from the Toll House Cookbook:
Ruth Wakefield’s Chocolate Crunch Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter, plus more for baking sheets
3/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved into 1 teaspoon hot water
2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
2 bars Nestle’s yellow label chocolate, semi-sweet, which has been cut into pieces the size of peas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat your oven to 375°.
Cream the butter and sugars. Add the beaten eggs. Add the baking soda dissolved in hot water.
Sift together the flour and salt and add to the butter mixture. Then stir in the nuts, chocolate chips, and vanilla.
Chill the dough
Drop by the tablespoonful onto lightly greased cookie sheets and bake until browned at the edges, 10 to 12 minutes.
Here’s what’s interesting to me – the vanilla is added last! And the baking soda is dissolved into hot water? Both felt very confusing before starting baking, and I will admit that these quirks made me want to try this recipe. I physically had to restrain myself from adding the vanilla to the egg step and even adding at the end felt weird and like it would not be incorporated. But it seemed to? Dissolving the baking soda was a new step for me too. So I had to look it up.
It turns out that by dissolving the baking soda into water before incorporating you are actually ensuring that the chemical is evenly distributed and begin the chemical reaction early. Since cookies typically don’t have a lot of moisture in them, the baking soda isn’t usually activated until the butter melts in the oven. When it’s been activated earlier, the CO2 can release as soon as the cookies hit the oven, rather than partially through the baking process.
The job of baking soda is to leaven the cookies and making them soft and fluffy. I imagine that’s why these cookies turned out much fluffier and taller than the cookies I regularly make? It led to my sister and I wondering if our grandmother dissolved her baking soda in her cookies because her oatmeal/chocolate chip/coconut cookies were always very puffy. It appears quite regularly in old fashioned cookie recipes which makes me wonder why we abandoned the practice?
After trying several versions now, I think I can confirm that a chocolate chip cookie is good, no matter what. If you want to try MY version of this classic recipe, I think it’s pretty decent.
Ali Hedin’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 35
1 cup butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
1 ½ cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips
STEP 1
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and sugars until creamy and lightened in color.
STEP 2
Add eggs and vanilla and whip until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients.
STEP 3
Add in dry ingredients until just barely incorporated. Then add in the chocolate chips and mix well. It’s great if they break up a little bit.
STEP 4
Scoop dough onto a cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes until the edges are browned but the center is still light brown. Let rest 5 minutes on a cookie sheet then transfer to a cooling rack.
Store in an airtight container for up to a week – but no longer!
Bottom line is there are enough chocolate chip cookie recipes out there for every person in America to have their own version of this popular cookie. This super subjective topic means that “the best” chocolate chip cookies are probably just the ones your mom made. If you’re looking for a new recipe to try, give mine a shot. I’m no Ruth Wakefield – but they’re still pretty good. You can’t lose.
Do you still have one lingering question? Is it “What is a Butter Drop Cookie?” Because that’s the lingering question I had after reading pages and pages about Ruth Wakefield. There are also a million recipes for Butter Drop Cookies but basically it’s a Chocolate Chip Cookie without the chocolate and adding in almond extract along with the vanilla. Believe me when I tell you that’s the next batch of cookies I’m making. Stay tuned.
