C is for cookie - chocolate chip cookie detail

A chocolate chip cookie is a drop cookie that features chocolate chips or chocolate morsels as its distinguishing ingredient. Chocolate chip cookies are claimed to have originated in the United States in 1938, when Ruth Graves Wakefield chopped up a

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

semi-sweet

chocolate bar A chocolate bar is a confection containing chocolate, which may also contain layerings or mixtures that include nut (fruit), nuts, fruit, caramel, nougat, and wafers. A flat, easily breakable, chocolate bar is also called a tablet. In some variet ...

and added the chopped chocolate to a cookie recipe; however, historical recipes for grated or chopped chocolate cookies exist prior to 1938 by various other authors. Generally, the recipe starts with a dough composed of flour, butter, both

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

and

white sugar White sugar, also called table sugar, granulated sugar, or regular sugar, is a commonly used type of sugar, made either of beet sugar or cane sugar, which has undergone a refining process. It is nearly pure sucrose. Description The refini ...

, semi-sweet chocolate chips, eggs, and

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). ''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...

. Variations on the recipe may add other

types of chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans mixed with fat (e.g. cocoa butter) and powdered sugar to produce a solid confectionery. There are several types of chocolate, classified primarily according to the proportion of cocoa ...

, as well as additional ingredients such as nuts or

oatmeal Oatmeal is a preparation of oats that have been dehusked, steamed, and flattened, or a coarse flour of hulled oat grains ( groats) that have either been milled (ground), rolled, or steel-cut. Ground oats are also called white oats. Steel- ...

. There are also

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...

versions with the necessary ingredient substitutions, such as vegan chocolate chips, vegan margarine, and egg substitutes. A ''chocolate chocolate chip cookie'' uses a dough flavored with chocolate or

cocoa powder Dry cocoa solids are the components of cocoa beans remaining after cocoa butter, the fatty component of the bean, is extracted from chocolate liquor, roasted cocoa beans that have been ground into a liquid state. Cocoa butter is 46% to 57% of the ...

, before chocolate chips are mixed in. These variations of the recipe are also referred to as "''double''" or "''triple''" chocolate chip cookies, depending on the combination of dough and chocolate types.

History

Toll House cookie

The most notable chocolate chip cookie recipe was invented by American chef Ruth Graves Wakefield in 1938. She invented the recipe during the period when she owned the Toll House Inn, in

Whitman, Massachusetts Whitman is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 15,121 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is located approximately south of Boston on the western edge of the ...

. In this era, the Toll House Inn was a popular restaurant that featured home cooking. A myth holds that she accidentally developed the cookie, and that she expected the chocolate chunks would melt, making chocolate cookies. That is not the case; Wakefield stated that she deliberately invented the cookie. She said, "We had been serving a thin butterscotch nut cookie with ice cream. Everybody seemed to love it, but I was trying to give them something different. So I came up with Toll House cookie." She added chopped up bits from a

semi-sweet chocolate bar into a cookie. The original recipe in ''Toll House Tried and True Recipes'' is called "Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies". Wakefield gave Nestle the recipe for her cookies and was paid with a lifetime supply of chocolate from the company.

Later history

Wakefield's cookbook, ''Toll House Tried and True Recipes'', was first published in 1936 by M. Barrows & Company, New York. The 1938 edition of the cookbook was the first to include the recipe "Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie" which rapidly became a favorite cookie in American homes. During World War II, soldiers from

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

who were stationed overseas shared the cookies they received in care packages from home with soldiers from other parts of the United States. Hundreds of soldiers wrote home asking their families to send them Toll House cookies, and Wakefield received letters from around the world requesting her recipe, helping spread their popularity beyond the east coast. Chocolate chip cookies were first sold in the UK in 1956 by Maryland Cookies.

Original recipe

Sue Brides, a baker who worked with Ruth Graves Wakefield at the Toll House Inn, passed down the original recipe to her daughter, Peg, who shared it in a 2017 interview: * cups (350 mL) shortening * cups (265 mL) sugar * cups (265 mL) brown sugar * 3 eggs * teaspoon (7.5 g) salt * cups (750 mL) of flour * teaspoon (7.5 g) hot water * teaspoon (7.5 g) baking soda * teaspoon (7.5 g) vanilla * chocolate chips (The ''Tried and True Recipes'' cookbook specifies "2 bars (7 oz.) Nestlé's yellow label chocolate, semi-sweet, which has been cut in pieces the size of a pea.").

Composition and variants

Chocolate chip cookies are commonly made with

;

brown sugar Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content or produced by t ...

;

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

;

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

; eggs; a

leavening agent In cooking, a leavening agent () or raising agent, also called a leaven () or leavener, is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action (gas bubbles) that lightens and softens the mixture. An altern ...

such as

baking soda Sodium bicarbonate (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda (or simply “bicarb” especially in the UK) is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt (chemistry), salt compose ...

; a fat, typically butter or

shortening Shortening is any fat that is a solid at room temperature and is used to make crumbly pastry and other food products. The idea of shortening dates back to at least the 18th century, well before the invention of modern, shelf-stable vegetable ...

;

vanilla extract Vanilla extract is a Solution (chemistry), solution made by maceration (food), macerating and percolation, percolating vanilla, vanilla pods in a solution of ethanol and water. It is considered an essential ingredient in many Western desserts, es ...

; and

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods. Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...

pieces. Some recipes also include milk or nuts (such as chopped

walnuts A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus ''Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an invo ...

) in the dough. Depending on the ratio of ingredients and mixing and cooking times, some recipes produce a soft, chewy cookie while others will produce a crunchy, crispy cookie. Regardless of ingredients, the procedure for making the cookie is fairly consistent in all recipes: First, the sugars and fat are creamed, usually with a wooden spoon or electric mixer. Next, the eggs and vanilla extract are added followed by the flour and leavening agent. Depending on the additional flavoring, its addition to the mix will be determined by the type used:

peanut butter Peanut butter is a food Paste (food), paste or Spread (food), spread made from Grinding (abrasive cutting), ground, dry roasting, dry-roasted peanuts. It commonly contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, ...

will be added with the wet ingredients while cocoa powder would be added with the dry ingredients. The titular ingredient, chocolate chips, as well as nuts are typically mixed in towards the end of the process to minimize breakage, just before the cookies are scooped and positioned on a cookie sheet. Most cookie dough is baked, although some eat the dough as is, or use it as an addition to vanilla

ice cream Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...

to make chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. The texture of a chocolate chip cookie is largely dependent on its fat composition and the type of fat used. A study done by Kansas State University showed that carbohydrate-based fat substitutes tend to bind more water, leaving less water available to aid in the spread of the cookie while baking and resulting in softer, cakelike cookies with less spread.

Common variations

* The ''M&M party cookie'' is baked with

M&M's M&M's are color-varied sugar-coated dragée chocolate confectionery by the Mars Wrigley Confectionery division of Mars Inc.. The candy consists of a candy shell surrounding a filling which determines the specific type of M&M's. Each piece has ...

instead of chocolate chips. * The ''chocolate chocolate chip'' or ''double chocolate'' cookie uses a dough that is chocolate-flavored by the addition of cocoa or melted chocolate. Variations on this cookie include replacing chocolate chips with

white chocolate White chocolate is a chocolate made from cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids. It is Ivory (color), ivory in color and lacks the dark appearance of most other types of chocolate as it does not contain the non-fat components of cocoa (cocoa sol ...

or peanut butter chips. * The ''macadamia chip cookie'' has

macadamia nuts ''Macadamia'' is a genus of four species of trees in the flowering plant family Proteaceae. They are indigenous to Australia—specifically, northeastern New South Wales and central and southeastern Queensland. Two species of the genus are comm ...

and white chocolate chips. * The ''chocolate chip peanut butter cookie'' replaces the vanilla-flavored dough with a peanut butter-flavored one. * Chocolate chip cookie dough baked in a baking dish instead of a cookie sheet results in a ''chocolate chip bar cookie'', also known as ''congo bars'' or ''blondies''. * Other variations include different sizes and shapes of chocolate chips, as well as dark or milk chocolate chips. These changes lead to differences in both flavor and texture. File:Chocolate chip cookie ingredients.jpg, alt=An arrangement consisting bags of brown sugar, white sugar, flour and chocolate chips; boxes of baking soda and salt; a carton of eggs, wrapped sticks of butter and a bottle of vanilla extract on a kitchen counter, Standard chocolate chip cookie ingredients File:Cookies2.webmhd.webm, Preparing chocolate chip cookies File:Chocolate chip bar.jpg, alt=A foil-lined tray with a solid light brown sheet with dark brown spots. A section has been cut away and most of a knife is lying in that portion., Chocolate chip bar cookies

Marketing

There are at least three national (U.S./

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

) chains that sell freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

s and standalone retail locations. Several businesses—including

Doubletree DoubleTree by Hilton is an American hotel chain managed by Hilton Worldwide. DoubleTree has been the fastest growing Hilton brand by number of properties since 2007, and by number of rooms from 2007 to 2015. , it has 587 properties with 135,745 ...

hotels—offer freshly baked cookies to their patrons to differentiate themselves from their competition. To honor the cookie's creation in the state, on July 9, 1997, Massachusetts designated the chocolate chip cookie as the Official State Cookie, after it was proposed by a third-grade class from Somerset, Massachusetts.

References

External links

Nestle Toll House Cookie recipe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chocolate Chip Cookie Articles containing video clips