Chocolate Chip Cookies (Then and Now)
Written by Madison King on 05/15/2019
Everyone has accidents. Throughout human history, accidents have actually ending up producing some of the most long-lived and well loved products we know. For example: penicillin, waffle cones, doughnut holes, and slinkies just to name a few. One of history’s most beloved bakery items falls under this category; the chocolate chip cookie!
Whitman, massachusetts 1938. The Toll House Inn is as busy as ever, as their main advertisement is quality home cooked food. Toll House runs out of it’s best-selling item, chocolate cookies. The head chef, Ruth Graves Wakefield, had run out of the dough for the chocolate cookies. So, she broke up pieces of her baker’s chocolate and mixed them into the dough, thinking it would produce the same result. Instead, she ended up with what we know and love today as chocolate chip cookies. Ruth, sensing she was onto something big, decided to broker a deal with the company whose chocolate she’d used during her discovery, Nestle. Together, they developed the classic chips we use in baking today and named them Toll House after its birthplace. While you can never go wrong with the original, I’ve got a recipe that’s guaranteed to become a family favorite.
What you’ll need:
2 ¼ cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup (or two sticks) shortening
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cups granulated sugar
¾ cups brown sugar
1 package instant vanilla pudding
Measure chips by eye
First, you’ll need to preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then combine the flour, soda, salt and pudding in a small bowl. Next, beat the shortening, sugars and vanilla together. Add eggs one at a time, then flour mixture. Be careful when combining the dry mix to the dough, if you add too much it will go everywhere. Stir in chips afterward, measured by eye. Finally, bake for 15 minutes, 20 for extra big cookies. Leave for five to ten minutes to cool and enjoy! I’ll give you a personal tip as well; I like to use a melon baller for cookie recipes like this, it ensures that your cookies are all the same size and shape.
