Ruth Wakfield’s Original (Toll House) Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 sticks (1 Cup) unsalted softened butter
3/4 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/4 Cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 Cups chocolate chips
Pre-heat your oven to 375 F. Cream the butter and sugars together, add the vanilla and eggs one at a time and mix. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda. Now add the dry mixture to the wet. Mix, then add in the chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes until browned around the edges. Take out and let cool for about 10 minutes. Enjoy!
The story behind the most beloved cookie in America is about failure. In the 1930s Ruth Wakefield was attempting to make chocolate swirl or chocolate infused cookies. She had used a semi-sweet chocolate bar though and the “chips” she had chopped from the bar didn’t melt. Instead of throwing the batch out, she tried them and her family tried them. Everyone loved them and an original American food was born.
Ruth ran, with her husband and family, an inn, called the Toll House and there the cookies were introduced to the public. They couldn’t get enough of them and she began making thousands of cookies for her customers.
Around this time Nestle’ was looking at candy bar sales and was about to forever discontinue their unpopular semi-sweet bar. However, they noticed sales in Massechusetts in the area of Ruth’s Inn were phenominal. They went to investigate and found out why! Ruth was buying all the semi-sweet bars she could find to make cookies!
Nestle’ and Ruth struck a deal. Ruth gave them permission to use her recipe forever for $1 US, but they gave her a lifetime supply of semi-sweet chocolate! (I wonder if this influenced Roald Dahl for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?) The cookies soon became a family staple, through war-time and rationing and when baby boomers were born they grew up in kitchens with chocolate chip cookies.
Thank you Ruth Wakefield for trying something new in the middle of one of our country’s darkest times. Your cookies have brought so much joy to so many people. You have brought so much joy to my family! When we got our O’Keefe and Merritt range the first thing we made was Chocolate Chip Cookies!
My well-loved Hobart Kitchenaide is as ready as a draft horse on the countertop.
La la la cream the two sticks of butter.
Dee dee dee it has to be good, real butter.
“Butter! Oh Isn’t butter divinity?“ (-Amy March, Little Women)
Late afternoon sunlight streams through the two west windows, glinting off the Peter Rabbit china.
Tiddly-pom add the sugar, vanilla; taste a big spoonful.
Creamed butter and sugar, teedly-dee God must love us.
Just me in my wonderful kitchen.
Sometimes the children help. Sometimes they play outside while I watch them from the sunny windows. Lord, thank you for giving me everything I ever wanted and for helping me to want what I have been given.
Hmmm hmm- mix all the dry ingredients, add the eggs and the flour mix.
This is the best tasting part- before the chocolate chips. Lovely, like silk on my tongue.
Deedly dee pop in the chocolate chips- they have to be Toll House.
Now mix, dum, dum.
There might be problems all around and in our lives, but this kitchen, our house and family, make me so happy. God is so good.
In my oven 375 F, out in 9 minutes and I’m in heaven…
Come and dance with me….cheek to cheek…
With kitchen-dancing and chocolate chip cookies to you from Kansas Street,
-Jaime
Life on Kansas Street 