It’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Week! Every year during the first week of March, Americans celebrate this classic cookie loaded with semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Whether you love them crunchy or chewy, chocolate chip cookies are usually made by combining sugar, flour, salt, eggs, baking soda, and chocolate chips to form a dough. If you can keep yourself from sampling it raw, the dough is then spooned onto a cookie sheet (or refrigerated, rolled and cut, depending on your preference) and baked at a set temperature until they’re warm and the chips become all ooey gooey goodness.
History of Chocolate Chip Cookies
According to National Today, chocolate chip cookies go as far back as 1938. Ruth Graves Wakefield is the American chef behind the creation of chocolate chip cookies. To spice up her menu at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, she came up with the recipe for this delectable treat by adding Nestle semi-sweet chocolate bar chunks to her cookie dough recipe. Wakefield named the cookie the ‘Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies.’ The cookies were an instant hit. She gave her cookie recipe to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
The popularity of the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies began to spread during the Second World War, as Massachusetts soldiers received the Toll House cookies as care packages. Eventually, Wakefield started receiving letter requests for her cookie recipe. Soon, the chocolate chip cookie crossed over to the United Kingdom, where the first chocolate cookies were sold by Maryland Cookies.
In present times, chocolate chip cookies are a staple worldwide. They can be found across the United States. Many chocolate chip cookie products come with recipe directions, allowing consumers to make their own homemade cookies. These staple treats can be found on Hotel menus, at airlines and local bakeries, or sold by cookie companies like Maryland Cookies and Famous Amos, to name a few.
This dessert is significant in Massachusetts because it was created there. From its origin till date, the chocolate chip cookie has undergone many variations, from the kind of chocolate used in the cookie preparation or the addition of new ingredients such as peanut butter. Regardless, the Chocolate chip cookie remains an American staple treat.
How to Celebrate
Bake some cookies, of course! If baking isn’t your thing, there are several cookie companies offering up some sweet CCC deals, including Insomnia and Burnt Ends.
Whether you decide to bake or buy, the point is to Eat and Enjoy them! And while you’re at it, share the CCC love with family and friends!
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