Chocolate chip cookies have always been a popular treat. But, do you know how the famous Nestle’s Toll House cookies got its name?
The aroma from the oven fills the house. Your mouth waters as you can tastes the warm, gooey chocolate. A fresh baked chocolate chip cookie can make any day a little brighter. On National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, do you know how Nestle’s Toll House cookies got their name?
Like many popular treats, the classic chocolate chip cookie didn’t just magically appear out of thin air. An ingenious woman saw a need and created a solution. Ruth Grave Wakefield is credited with the invention of the chocolate chip cookie. A baker at the Massachusetts’s Toll House Inn, Wakefield experimented with adding Nestle’s chocolate to her cookies.
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The Toll House Inn cookies were a huge success. Everyone wanted Wakefield’s recipe for her special cookies. In 1939, she agreed to allow Nestle to print her cookie recipe on the Nestle chocolate bars. Wakefield was paid a lifetime supply of chocolate. Today, the Nestle Toll House cookies are named for the Toll House Inn, where the cookies were first created.
Nestle made an impressive business deal back in 1939. It is highly doubtful that a lifetime supply of chocolate would buy such an iconic recipe today. The classic recipe is still the one used on the back of Nestle chocolate chips.
August 4 celebrates National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, another August food holiday. While Nestle’s Toll House cookies are the classic, chocolate chip cookies have transformed over the years. From adding nuts to combining chocolate chip flavors, reinvention keeps the cookie from becoming stale. Some places even add bacon to their chocolate chip cookies.
The biggest debate concerning chocolate chip cookies isn’t necessarily ingredients, it type. Do you prefer soft and chewy or crisp and crunchy? Usually people are strictly in one camp or the other.
The difference isn’t in the baking, it is in the recipe. Crispy cookies have less moisture. When a recipe has less flour, egg and sugar, the fat content increases. During baking, the fat gets hotter than the water and the water evaporates. Less water makes for crispy cookies.
Whether you prefer chewy, crunchy or raw cookie dough (I won’t judge), enjoy one or a few on National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. Raise a glass of milk to Ruth Grave Wakefield as a thank you for her iconic recipe.