9 Chocolate Recipe - The Nestlé Toll House Cookie

Traditional chocolate chip cookie (gettyimages.com)

Semi-sweet chocolate chips

9 - Chocolate Recipe

The Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie

One of the most popular and common modern baked goods eaten around the world is the humble chocolate chip cookie. Or, NOT so humble, in most people’s opinions. The Nestlé website states the chocolate chip cookie is the most popular cookie in the world. While the cookie itself is a sweet dough, the Nestlé Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels baked inside it are what makes it special. 

"The Nestlé® Toll House® story begins with chocolate chip cookie inventor Ruth Wakefield, who ran the successful Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts. One day, while baking a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies, a favorite recipe dating back to colonial times, Wakefield broke a bar of Nestlé® semi-sweet chocolate into tiny pieces and added them to the dough expecting to create a chocolate cookie. Instead, the semi-sweet bits held their shape and softened to a delicate creamy texture. Wakefield’s “Toll House Crunch Cookie” recipe was published in a Boston newspaper and quickly became the trending cookie recipe everyone was baking." (Nestléusa.com)

The original Butter Drop-Do (dough) cookie was a simple butter cookie that had been handed down from colonial days, and was clearly still in use on the East Coast in Massachusetts, where the Toll House Inn was located. (clickamericana.com)

I have spent numerous hours in my life making chocolate chip cookies for family and friends, mostly during childhood, but any number of times as an adult. It’s one of those memories of cooking and sharing that stand out to me to do with my family, along with pancakes, stew, and homemade chicken noodle soup. all staples of American food. I never once thought about what chocolate chips are made of, except chocolate, and why the ingredients, especially the chocolate, don’t run all over the baking sheet. Why would I? I’m not a chef! But I have spent many a blissful hour through time eating freshly baked hot chocolate chip cookies, which are the best! So, now I have found out the secrets of the chocolate chip cookie. 

Semi-sweet chocolate started out as a baking chocolate used in many recipes by many chefs.  According to Wikipedia, “Chocolate chips were created with the invention of chocolate chip cookies in 1937 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. (The Nestlé brand Toll House cookies is named for the inn.). ” (Wikipedia.com) 


Nestlé included a chopping tool with the baking bars, which could be what Wakefield used while she was dealing with the semi-sweet bar of chocolate. This was a very smart thing to do by Nestlé, as it provided chefs with an appropriate tool other than a knife or other culinary tools. “Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars.” (Wikipedia.com) 

The reason that the semi-sweet baking chocolate did not fully melt when baked in the oven is that there is a lower amount of cocoa butter in the drops as the chocolate would be combined in baked goods that would already be using fats such as butter. “ Although convenient, melted chocolate chips are not always recommended as a substitute for baking chocolate. Because most chocolate chips are designed to retain their shape when baking, they contain less cocoa butter than baking chocolate, and so can be more difficult to work with melted.” (Wikipedia.com)

   “Semisweet and bittersweet are terms traditionally used in the United States to indicate the amount of added sugar in dark chocolate. Typically, bittersweet chocolate has less sugar than semisweet chocolate,[32] but the two are interchangeable when baking. Both must contain a minimum of 35% cocoa solids.” (Wikipedia.com)

As bits of chocolate chipped off a block, the chocolate would likely have been lacking in uniform size with lots of tiny bits. Nestle found a way to aid bakers by producing the chocolate bars already scored and ready to break off into little squares to make baking the chocolate chip cookies easier. “Realizing a way to make the Wakefield’s Toll House cookie recipe easier for bakers, in 1939, Nestlé® scored its semi-sweet chocolate bars into 160 right size pieces especially for Nestlé® Toll House® cookies. Shortly after, the familiar ready-to-use teardrop shaped “morsels” were introduced. “ (Nestléusa.com)

Nestlé and others began producing chocolate chips in an actual formal shape of a flat-bottomed drop. “In 1941, Nestlé and at least one of its competitors started selling the chocolate in "chip" (or "morsel") form.” (Wikipedia.com) Nestlé and others then went on to produce all sorts of different flavors of drops for use in baking, giving bakers even more creativity. “Originally, chocolate chips were made of semi-sweet chocolate, but today there are many flavors. These include bittersweet, peanut butter, butterscotch, mint chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white and dark swirled chips.”(Wikipedia.com)

As a restaurant owner and a business person, Wakefield made an incredibly smart move by asking for something in return for using the name of her restaurant in the recipe Nestlé asked to add to their package of chocolate. Wakefield asked for a lifetime supply of chocolate! As a business, that had to be a boon, because she could use the chocolate in all sorts of other recipes besides chocolate chip cookies. “The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement in 1939 with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar's packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. ” (Wikipedia.com) 

The Nestle Toll House Cookie has also appeared in television in an episode of the sitcom, “Friends”. In it, the character Phoebe is trying to remember her grandmother’s secret chocolate chip cookie recipe, and has only one frozen cookie left.  The character Monica, a chef, tries out many different versions, but none quite match Phoebe’s cookie flavor. At last, Phoebe remembers the name of the French relative her grandmother got the cookie from, and said in a very French accent, “Neslay Tolhouse”. Monica shoves a Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chip bag at her and says, “Is this the recipe!” Phoebe becomes understandably upset at her long-gone grandmother. (Wikipedia.com). 

As for Nestle itself, it started in Switzerland, and became partners itself with the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, and began producing baby food for areas where malnourishment was rampant. It eventually built factories in the USA, and supplied World War II with numerous food products. In terms of cacao products, Nestle makes this statement,  “Nestlé USA, Inc., Nestlé Prepared Foods Company and Nestlé Dreyer’s Ice Cream Company support the goals of the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 and strive to be examples of good human rights and labor practices throughout our business activities.“ (nestleusa.com)

As stated, one of the most popular and common modern baked goods eaten around the world is the humble chocolate chip cookie. There are many reasons it is so tasty. Butter. Chocolate. Sugar. What’s not to like? As the chocolate chip cookie is the most popular cookie in the world, we can enjoy it without guilt. 


Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Nestlé Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels

1 cup chopped nuts (if omitting, add 1-2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour)

 

Method


Step 1

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Step 2

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Step 3

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

(Nestléusa.com)


       Bibliography

clickamericana.com. “The original Toll House Cookie Recipe, Plus the Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies History.“ Click Americana. 18 Nov 2020. 24 Nov 2023. <https://clickamericana.com/recipes/dessert-recipes/original-toll-house-cookie-recipe-1939>

Nestleusa.com. “A timeless discovery: The chocolate chip cookie”. Nestlé. Accessed 21 Nov 2023. <https://www.Nestléusa.com/stories/ timeless-discovery-toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe>

Nestleusa.com. “Time travel through the Nestlé story.” Nestlé. 2023. 24 Nov 2023. 

<https://www.nestle.com/about/history/nestle-company-history>

Nestleusa.com. “California Transparency in Supply Chains Act.” Nestlé. 2023. 24 Nov 2023. <https://www.nestleusa.com/about-us/supply-chains-act>

Nestleusa.com. “TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Morsels Celebrates 75th Anniversary“.  Nestlé. 29 Jul 2014. 21 Nov 2023. <https://www.Nestléusa.com/media/pressreleases/Nestlé-toll-house-semi-sweet-morsels-celebrates-75th-anniversary>

Wikipedia contributors. "Chocolate chip." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 Oct. 2023. Web. 24 Nov. 2023. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_chip>

Wikipedia contributors. "Friends (season 7)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Nov. 2023. Web. 25 Nov. 2023. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_(season_7)>

Wikipedia contributors. "Types of chocolate." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Nov. 2023. Web. 25 Nov. 2023. <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CiteThisPage&page=Types_of_chocolate&id=1185827404&wpFormIdentifier=titleform>


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