The Cookie Crumbles

by Connie Cortright

Now that the holiday season is behind us, many people are starting their annual diets to lose the weight they added over the last month. However, chocolate chip cookies will probably sneak past the diet police since it is generally accepted that they are the favorite cookie of our country.

This favorite cookie had its beginning during the Depression so here is the chocolate chip cookie story.


Ruth Graves Wakefield, who ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, loved to bake for the boarders of her inn. She wanted to make them Butter Drop Do cookies which called for an addition of Baker's chocolate to the recipe to make a chocolate dough. Mrs. Wakefield discovered that she didn't have any Baker's chocolate in the house that day so instead substituted a chocolate bar cut into tiny morsels. That chocolate bar had been given to her by Andrew Nestle.

Ruth hoped the chocolate bits would melt making the cookies chocolate like they usually were. Instead she was surprised to see that the cookies retained their vanilla taste with the addition of melted chocolate morsels. They were such a hit with the guests of her inn that she continued to improve the recipe and make the chocolate chip cookies for them.

Thus the connection between the Nestle Company and Mrs. Wakefield's Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies was born. To accommodate the popularity of the cookies, for several years Nestle's formed their chocolate bars so they would be easier to break into chocolate bits for the cookies.

In 1939 the Nestle Company started packaging chocolate chips specifically for the cookies so women everywhere didn't have to chop up a Nestle chocolate bar to add to the recipe.

With her recipe becoming more famous all the time, Mrs. Wakefield contracted with Nestle's to have them print her cookie recipe on the back of every package of Nestle's Chocolate Chips in return for a life time supply of Nestle's chocolate for her kitchen. That was quite a deal! Nestle's benefited from the popularity of the cookies and only had to supply her with chocolate.

When I was a girl, I learned to bake chocolate chip cookies with the recipe on the back of the Nestle's Chocolate Chip bag as I'm sure did most every other woman in the country. They taste the same today as in 1933.

I wanted to share another bit of history with you that we share with our loved ones who lived so many years ago. I, for one, am very glad that Mrs. Wakefield came up with this wonderful recipe. It's been a favorite for myself and my family for many years. Now, where's my cookie?

Information taken from History of Chocolate chip Cookies