Americans consume 7 billion chocolate chip cookies annually—and not just top seller Chips Ahoy! and its numerous packaged cookie competitors. Chocolate chip cookies also represent nearly half of all homemade cookies baked in the U.S. The comforting treat got its start during the Great Depression, when “cookies were a way of maintaining some normalcy while still being affordable,” says food historian Sarah Wassberg Johnson.
Here’s how a single recipe captured the nation’s heart and palate.
1. A Female Entrepreneur Invented Chocolate Chip Cookies in the 1930s
Cookies started to become popular in the U.S. at the end of the 19th century, when natural gas and electric stoves became widespread and made it much easier to bake them, says Johnson. Falling ingredient prices also fueled the cookies’ rise: “During the Great Depression, for the first time, white flour and sugar are cheap and accessible thanks to changes in agricultural production and processing,” she adds.
Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts, created the first chocolate chip cookie recipe in the 1930s. She served her “Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie” as a free accompaniment for the restaurant’s vanilla ice cream desserts.
Wakefield’s establishment was a popular roadside stop between Boston and Cape Cod. Its fan base included celebrities like Cole Porter, Bette Davis, John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Joe DiMaggio. But it was Wakefield’s cookie recipe that would transform the “Toll House cookie” into a household name. In fact, in 1983, the name had become so ubiquitous that a judge ruled that “Toll House cookie” had become common language and could not be trademarked.
2. New Englanders Baked So Many Chocolate Chip Cookies, They Boosted Nestlé Sales
When Nestlé CEO Edward Mueller noticed that sales of Nestlé chocolate bars were spiking in Massachusetts, he went to investigate. He made a surprising discovery: The sales increase was driven by people at home trying to replicate Wakefield’s Toll House cookies.
In 1939, Mueller bought the rights to the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie recipe for $1. In return, he hired Wakefield as a consultant, gave her a lifetime supply of chocolate, and put her recipe on Nestlé’s packaging, giving Toll House cookies national exposure.
Massachusetts honored Wakefield’s invention in 1997, when the chocolate chip cookie was named the state’s official state cookie, beating the Fig Newton of Newton, Massachusetts. In 2001, Pennsylvania also named the chocolate chip cookie its official state cookie in a nod to Hershey’s, the biggest U.S. chocolate producer.
3. Nestlé Invented Chocolate Chips for the Chocolate Chip Cookie
Wakefield made her “chips” by using an ice pick to break up chocolate bars into small pieces because chocolate chips hadn’t been invented yet. She was eager to skip this labor-intensive step and wrote to Nestlé, asking if smaller pieces of chocolate could be sold. The company responded in 1940 by putting “Nestlé’s Toll House Morsels” on the market.Other companies like Hershey’s would introduce essentially the same product, naming it chocolate chips. But Nestlé stuck with morsels.
4. WWII Soldiers Made Chocolate Chip Cookies an International Sensation
During World War II, Americans mailed care packages with millions of chocolate chip cookies to troops on the front lines. “Like Spam and Coca-Cola, chocolate chip cookies’ fame was boosted by wartime soldier consumption,” writes Carolyn Wyman in The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book.
Faced with wartime rationing, clever home cooks substituted sweeteners like maple syrup for sugar and shortening for butter.
“Before the war, they were largely an East Coast-based fad,” Wyman writes. After the war, “Toll House cookies rivaled apple pie as the most popular dessert recipe in the country.”
5. Ready-to-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Launched in 1955
In the post-WWII economic boom, advertisers emphasized convenience as a way to attract female consumers, who did almost all of the cooking. Nestlé launched ready-to-bake chocolate chip cookie dough in 1955. Companies like Pillsbury soon followed suit.
6. 'Chips Ahoy!' Were the First Shelf-Stable, Mass-Market Chocolate Chip Cookie
Oreo’s manufacturer, Nabisco, developed the first mass-market chocolate chip cookie, launching Chips Ahoy! in 1963 during the golden age of convenience foods. (Hello, TV dinners!)
With shelf-stabilizing ingredients that kept the cookies fresh for months, Chips Ahoy! appealed to busy consumers with no time to bake. Nabisco’s recipe also removed nuts, making the product a safer choice for allergy-conscious consumers.
After the recipe for a shelf-stable cookie was developed, competitors like Famous Amos Cookies, Mrs. Field’s, and Tate’s Bake Shop began jockeying for pride of place in American pantries.
7. These ‘Famous’ Chocolate Chip Cookies Were Backed by Serious Star Power
Before he launched Famous Amos Cookies, Wally Amos made his mark as a color barrier-breaking agent in the music industry. He signed Simon & Garfunkel, Diana Ross, Sam Cooke and Dionne Warwick before founding his baking empire in 1975. He started out giving his cookies away to clients, some of whom became early investors, like Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy. Amos’ likeness, splashed across cookie packaging and in advertisements, became “the face that launched a thousand chips.”
8. Ben & Jerry’s Invented Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream in 1984
Wakefield died in 1977, but her practice of serving vanilla ice cream with cookies came full circle in 1984 with the invention of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. At the suggestion of an anonymous customer, Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop in Burlington, Vermont, started mixing chocolate chip cookie dough chunks into ice cream. After six years of research, Ben and Jerry’s began selling the company’s famous pints of cookie dough ice cream in stores. It has been the most popular Ben & Jerry’s flavor for decades.
