Today is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, celebrating the beloved American classic born at a Massachusetts roadside inn.
In 1938, baker and restaurant owner Ruth Wakefield published her Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie recipe after folding chopped semisweet chocolate into buttery dough. The cookies became so popular that Nestlé printed the recipe on its chocolate bars the following year, then introduced ready-to-use chocolate chips by 1941.
Wakefield’s cookbook eventually reached 39 printings, helping the recipe spread into kitchens nationwide. Crisp at the edges, soft in the middle with melty chocolate chips throughout, chocolate chip cookies remain a beloved all-time favorite everywhere.
To taste the cookie that started it all, follow Ruth Wakefield’s 1938 recipe, creaming butter with brown and granulated sugar before adding eggs, flour, baking soda, vanilla, walnuts and semisweet chocolate bars chopped into pea-sized pieces, since ready-made chocolate chips did not yet exist.
– Staff report with AI assist*, The Today 100
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