Tips for great Chocolate Chip Cookies, by the inventor herself…

Who invented Chocolate Chip Cookies? Ruth Wakefield

In 1930, Wakefield was mixing a batch of cookies for her roadside inn guests when she discovered that she was out of baker’s chocolate. She substituted broken pieces of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate, expecting it to melt and absorb into the dough to create chocolate cookies. That didn’t happen, but the surprising result helped to make Ruth Wakefield one of the 20th century’s most famous women inventors. When she removed the pan from the oven, Wakefield realized that she had accidentally invented “chocolate chip cookies.”

At the time, she called her creations “Toll House Crunch Cookies.” They became extremely popular locally, and the recipe was soon published in a Boston newspaper. As the popularity of the Toll House Crunch Cookie increased, the sales of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate bars also spiked. Andrew Nestle and Ruth Wakefield decided to come up with an agreement. Nestle would print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its package, and Wakefield would be given a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate. Due to this unexpected discovery by a famous woman inventor, the chocolate chip cookie became the most popular variety of cookie in America, a distinction it still holds to this day.

Now for Ruth’s tips for great Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Tips on Making Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Ruth Wakefield

There is no substitute for quality. Even in simple recipes, like mine for chocolate chip cookies, every ingredient’s quality has an effect on the recipe’s outcome.

Eggs: Always use fresh eggs. Eggs that are past their prime may exhibit a cloudy white and a flatter rather than rounder yolk. If you are not sure about the freshness of an egg, break it into a measuring cup to inspect it before adding it to the recipe. Washing your hands after handling eggs is good procedure. This is especially true if you are going to touch the cookie dough later or taste the dough as you prepare it.

Baking Soda: Arm & Hammer brand baking soda works fine.

Butter: There’s no substitute for butter. If you can not use butter for health reasons, do not waste your time attempting to make a great chocolate chip cookie. They will be substandard. I prefer unsalted butter, but you can use salted butter. Name brand butter works better than a generic brands. Generic brands vary a great deal in their taste and texture. You should experiment. My recipe uses softened butter. Softened don’t mean liquid butter. When butter becomes a liquid during softening the cookies texture will suffer greatly. My method for softening butter is to use a microwave safe mixing bowl put the butter in it and the mixing bowl goes on a turntable in a microwave. If you do not have a microwave turntable, you should rotate to the bowl every 30 seconds or so. Set the microwave level at low and microwave the butter for a minute or two. The stick of butter should still be shaped like a stick, but can be easily dented by a gentle touch of a finger. Microwave ovens will sometimes microwave the center of the butter and c melted a hole in the center. Don’t worry if this happens, a small liquid amount will not seriously damage this recipe. To prevent this, move the butter around in the microwave when you rotate it.

If your butter does not fully soften you will just have to work harder with your mixing the butter into the ingredients, but exercise will do you good.

Salt: I prefer iodized table salt. Salt substitutes taste is not complementary to the cookies.

White Sugar: Grocery stores house brands are not equal to name brands in my experience. White sugars don’t seem to vary from one brand to another in quality.

Cookies made with white sugar substitutes are not fit for human consumption.

Brown Sugar: Brown sugars do vary from one brand to the next and by how old they are. I prefer Domino brand brown sugar. If your brown sugar is hard as a rock, it will not make a great cookie. To dissolve hard brown sugar will require too much stirring and will change the texture of the cookie. Using a dark brown sugar will produce a darker stronger tasting cookie than using light brown sugar. In my experience, most people prefer cookies made with light brown sugar. If they don’t have a choice, they seem to enjoy cookies made with dark brown sugar just fine.

Brown sugar substitutes do not result in edible chocolate chip cookies.

Vanilla: Whenever two bakers gather to talk baking the debate over whether to use real vanilla extract or imitation vanilla will likely arise. My experience is that real vanilla extract is absolutely necessary for some recipes. For example, I use real vanilla extract when I am adding the vanilla to a cooked custard that I use in a chocolate éclair cake. However, real vanilla extract seems to lose its flavor when exposed to high temperatures like those required to bake chocolate chip cookies. I recommend imitation vanilla extract for this recipe.

Flour: Selecting a flour is also a matter of personal preference. I prefer to use a harder flour. Hard flours will often have labels that say something like “better for bread.” Cake flours produce a cookie with a finer texture which in my opinion is not desirable.

Chocolate Chips: The quality of chocolate chips varies greatly. Nestles Toll House chocolate chips are very good and are available at most markets. I personally don’t enjoy the flavor of Hershey’s chocolate chips. My preferred chocolate chip brand is Guittard. These chips are available through Sam’s Club stores. When I can afford them, I also use Merkens’ semisweet chocolate chips. Merkens’ chocolate chips are available through The King Arthur Baker’s Catalog (800-827-6836).

Nuts: Although most chocolate chip recipes call for walnuts, pecans are preferred by most everyone I have asked. Use whatever nuts you prefer, but don’t say that you are using my recipe unless you use pecans. Nut quality is also very important and not easily obtained. Old nuts will be soft and mealy. Taste the pecans before you put them into the dough. If you feel like you would like to have a second or a third, use them. If the not, look for better quality nuts. The brands carried by Sam’s Club an BJ’s stores are excellent. The Diamond brand nuts found in most markets areas o so and overly expensive.

Want Ruth’s recipe? Easy, it’s on the back of every bag of Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips sold today! Enjoy.

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