Chocolate-chip cookie

The chocolate-chip cookie, also known as the Toll House Cookie, was accidentally developed by Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn near Whitman, Massachusetts, in 1930. Wakefield was making chocolate cookies but ran out of regular baker's chocolate and substituted broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate, assuming it would melt and mix into the batter. It did not, and the cookie with chips of chocolate was born. (The restaurant, housed in a former toll house built in 1709, burned down in 1984.)

Related Topics:
Ruth Graves Wakefield - Toll House Inn - Whitman, Massachusetts - 1930 - Cookie - Baker's chocolate - Semi-sweet chocolate - Restaurant - Toll house - 1709 - 1984

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Today, half the cookies baked in American homes are chocolate-chip, with an estimated seven billion consumed annually.

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While the Toll House recipe is considered the standard, the ingredients can be adjusted to give the cookies slightly different properties.

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• For a thin, crisp cookie, increase the baking soda by up to 50%, replace one of the eggs with milk, and raise the ratio of brown sugar to white.
• For a soft, cakey cookie, use cake flour, substitute baking soda for baking powder, and use shortening instead of butter.
• For a chewy cookie, use bread flour, omit one egg white, and melt the butter before incorporating it into the mix.
• Sometimes a crunch is added by putting nuts in the cookies.
 
Chocolate-chip cookie: References ►