{"id":8315,"date":"2026-10-19T15:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T06:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/?post_type=sweetlore&p=8315"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:49:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T09:49:44","slug":"chocolate-chip-cookie","status":"publish","type":"sweetlore","link":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/en\/sweetlore\/chocolate-chip-cookie\/","title":{"rendered":"Chocolate Chip Cookie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The chocolate chip cookie is an American confection made by mixing pieces of chocolate into the dough and baking it. The dough spreads as it bakes, and some cookies come out with toasty edges and soft centers. Together with the parts where the chocolate is mixed in, a single cookie offers several different textures. The cookie did not begin with purpose-made chips. The Toll House recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method of preparation), which called for chopping a chocolate bar, later led to the sale of baking chips and to recipes printed on the packaging.<\/p>\n

\n\"Chopped\n
Chocolate chip cookies on a cutting board (June 30, 2018; location unknown). Hand-chopped chocolate and a knife lie beside them. Photo: Mshuang2 \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC0<\/a>. Reduced-size version obtained from Commons. Released under CC0 by the photographer. No content alterations or cropping by us.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Creaming butter and sugar, then resting the dough<\/h2>\n

A typical order is to cream soft butter with sugar to work in fine air bubbles, add the eggs, mix in the flour, and finally scatter in the chocolate. In formulas with several eggs, adding them one at a time makes the water in the eggs and the fat in the butter less likely to separate. After the flour goes in, the dough is mixed only until the flour absorbs the moisture, then mixing stops rather than continuing to work the dough. While the dough rests in the refrigerator, the sugar dissolves, the flour absorbs more moisture, and the fat firms up, all of which changes how the dough spreads in the oven.<\/p>\n

During baking, the fat and sugar melt and the dough spreads. Moisture then escapes from the edges, and the egg and flour components set with the heat, so the outline holds. In a cookie with little water, the starch as a whole does not gelatinize the way it does in bread. The texture changes with the combination of the proportions of sugar, fat, and flour and the baking time and temperature.<\/p>\n

Changing the texture with sugar, fat, and thickness<\/h2>\n

Brown sugar, which contains molasses, is used for a soft, chewy result. A formula based on granulated sugar, with less moisture and slow baking, moves the cookie toward a dry, light texture.<\/p>\n

Fat is another ingredient that changes the cookie’s shape. Butter melts at a lower temperature than shortening, so it tends to flow before the dough sets and pushes the cookie toward a thin spread. Shortening is a fat that helps keep the cookie thick. That said, a soft cookie depends not only on the choice of fat but also on reducing the sugar to adjust the spread and on baking so that the center does not dry out too much.<\/p>\n

Even with the same dough, the thickness changes depending on whether the cookie is baked in the shape of a drop cookie, scooped and dropped onto the baking sheet, or pressed flat before baking. Thin edges bake quickly while moisture stays in a thick center, so a single cookie can have two textures. With cold dough, the fat takes longer to start melting, which makes it easier to limit spreading.<\/p>\n

Some methods brown part of the butter to add a toasty flavor. Because browning evaporates the water, some formulas use the rest of the butter unbrowned to keep the moisture the dough needs to hold together.<\/p>\n

\n\"A\n
A Duane Reade\u2013brand chocolate chip cookie (November 4, 2011; location unknown). Pieces of chocolate remain in the spread-out baked dough. Photo: Evan-Amos \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ Public domain<\/a>. Reduced-size version obtained from Commons. No content alterations or cropping by us.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Uniform chips and chopped chocolate bars<\/h2>\n

Uniform chips give a result in which each individual piece stands out. Chopping a chocolate bar produces a mix of large chunks and fine shavings. The small pieces work their way into the dough, while the larger pieces form spreading pools of melted chocolate. Even with the same amount of chocolate, the way it is cut and distributed changes the intensity and mouthfeel of each bite.<\/p>\n

Even though the cookie is named for chips, a chopped chocolate bar is an ingredient that fits the way the cookie began. Combinations of pieces and dough have also multiplied, such as white chocolate with macadamia nuts, or a cocoa dough with dark chocolate.<\/p>\n

\n\"A\n
A chocolate chip cookie dunked in milk (Sterling, Virginia, USA; October 24, 2019). A moment of eating the cookie after letting it soak up milk from the edge. Photo: Famartin \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>. Reduced-size version obtained from Commons. No content alterations or cropping by us.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Checking the texture after cooling<\/h2>\n

For formulas meant to keep a soft center, one method is to take the cookies out when the edges start to brown and the middle still looks soft, and then let them cool on the baking sheet. If they are baked until firm while still warm, they will be hard all the way to the center once they cool. Because the state of the chocolate also changes with temperature, the softness straight from the oven and the texture of a cooled cookie are checked separately. By changing the formula and the baking method, you can adjust the toastiness of the edges, the moist texture of the center, and how much the chocolate pieces keep their shape.<\/p>\n

The Toll House recipe and the spread of baking chips<\/h2>\n

The Toll House recipe that Ruth Graves Wakefield published in 1938 called for chopping a chocolate bar into small pieces and mixing them in. There is a story that she added the chocolate by mistake, expecting it to melt throughout the dough, but this does not match the deliberate idea she herself later described. An advertisement using the same cookie name exists from 1928, but it is unknown whether that cookie kept distinct pieces of chocolate as today’s does.<\/p>\n

In 1939, Nestl\u00e9 asked Wakefield to let it print the recipe on its packaging. By 1940 it had introduced a scored chocolate bar that was easy to break into pieces, and it later mass-produced chip-shaped morsels. A 1941 company recipe booklet is also preserved at The Henry Ford museum. Spread through a recipe for home baking and the commercialization of its ingredients, the cookie is also said to have been popular during the Second World War as a treat sent to soldiers.<\/p>\n

Premixed dough and specialty shops’ own styles<\/h2>\n

After packaged chips and printed recipes helped people make the cookie at home, refrigerated premixed dough that could be scooped and baked without mixing ingredients at home, and mixes combining flour and chips, further widened the occasions for baking. While home formulas and ingredients spread, specialty shops selling baked cookies also increased.<\/p>\n

In 1975, Wally Amos began selling small, bite-size chocolate chip cookies on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. The current company history of Famous Amos also names this bite size as a defining feature from its founding.<\/p>\n

Debbi Fields, who opened a shop in Palo Alto in 1977, made warm, soft, freshly baked cookies her shop’s hallmark.<\/p>\n

Then, in New York in 1995, Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald of the bakery Levain made large chocolate and walnut cookies to take to their athletic training, and they began selling them in the shop as well.<\/p>\n

Amos’s small bites, Fields’s soft cookies sold in the shop, and Levain’s thick, oversized cookies are examples of specialty shops giving the cookie, which is baked on sheet pans at home, their own distinctive sizes and textures.<\/p>\n

Cookie dough mixed into ice cream<\/h2>\n

The dough itself also found its way into another dessert. Ben & Jerry’s states that in 1984, at its Burlington shop and at a customer’s suggestion, it mixed unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough into vanilla ice cream, and that after adjustments for production it launched the flavor in pint containers in 1991. It is an example of the cookie expanding from a baked good studded with chocolate pieces into a dessert in which the texture of the dough is enjoyed inside cold, milky ice cream. The dough in this product is made specifically to be eaten in ice cream and is not treated the same as home dough intended for baking.<\/p>\n

Glossary<\/h2>\n

Ruth Graves Wakefield<\/strong>: A cook who ran the Toll House Inn. The recipe she published in her 1938 cookbook played a major role in the spread of the chocolate chip cookie.<\/p>

Toll House Inn<\/strong>: A lodging and dining establishment in Whitman, Massachusetts. The source of the cookie’s common name.<\/p>

Brown sugar<\/strong>: Brown-colored sugar that contains molasses. It is not always the same ingredient as Japanese sanont\u014d sugar.<\/p>

Shortening<\/strong>: A solid fat used in cookies and other baked goods. The difference between how it and butter melt also affects how the dough spreads.<\/p>

Debbi Fields<\/strong>: The person who opened a cookie shop in Palo Alto in 1977 and popularized soft, freshly baked cookies.<\/p>

Pam Weekes \/ Connie McDonald<\/strong>: The co-founders of Levain. They developed the thick chocolate walnut cookie into one of the shop’s products.<\/p>

Drop cookie<\/strong>: A cookie baked by placing the dough on the baking sheet one portion at a time, for example by scooping and dropping it.<\/p>

References<\/h2>\n
  1. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cA butter trick for better chocolate chip cookies\u201d<\/a> \u2014 A method that browns part of the butter and uses the rest to retain moisture.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  2. \n

    Betty Crocker, \u201cChocolate Chip Cookie Mix\u201d<\/a> \u2014 A current product in which butter and eggs are added to a pouch of premixed flour, sugar, and chocolate chips. It does not indicate a historical launch year.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  3. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cHow to make thick, puffy bakery-style cookies\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The large bakery style with a soft center, and the relationship between chilling and thickness. It is not evidence that any particular shop invented the style first.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  4. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cMake your best cookies with these 10 tips\u201d<\/a> \u2014 Air incorporated by creaming butter and sugar, overcreaming, and chilling and spread.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  5. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cCan you make cookie dough ahead of time?\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The firming of fat and dissolving of sugar during refrigeration.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  6. \n

    Pillsbury, \u201cChocolate Chip Refrigerated Cookie Dough\u201d<\/a> \u2014 A current product of refrigerated premixed dough that is placed on the baking sheet one spoonful at a time and baked. The launch year is not taken from this source.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  7. \n

    Library of Congress, \u201cRuth Wakefield and Her Chocolate Crunch Cookie\u201d<\/a>: The 1938 cookbook in the collection, chopped chocolate, the media through which the cookie spread, and Wakefield’s own later explanation.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  8. \n

    Gastropod, \u201cThe Way the Cookie Crumbles,\u201d official transcript<\/a>: Accounts from Stella Parks and Carolyn Wyman, who researched baking history; earlier advertisements; and serving the cookie at the Toll House and its spread.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  9. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cCookie science\u201d<\/a> \u2014 Moisture and starch in the flour of chocolate chip cookies, and the melting of sugar and the texture on cooling.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  10. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cA pastry chef\u2019s trick for preventing curdled cake batter\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The basic mechanism of adding eggs gradually to butter and sugar to prevent the fat and water from separating. Because it describes cake batter, its application to cookies is limited to the mixing order.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  11. \n

    Study published by AACC International, \u201cCookie- versus cracker-baking\u2014what\u2019s the difference?\u201d, PubMed abstract<\/a> \u2014 Limited to the point that starch gelatinization is delayed or suppressed in high-sugar, low-moisture cookie dough.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  12. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cCookie chemistry\u201d<\/a>: Texture as shaped by sugar, fat, thickness, and baking, and the idea of judging cookies after they cool.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  13. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cJust 4 Chocolate Chip Cookies\u201d<\/a>: The mixing process, baking to keep the center soft and cooling on the baking sheet, and the variation of pressing the dough flat.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  14. \n

    King Arthur Baking, \u201cThe best chocolate chip cookies don’t have chocolate chips\u201d<\/a>: A comparison of the distribution and texture of chopped chocolate and chips.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  15. \n

    Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, \u201cConcise Facts,\u201d State Cookie section<\/a>: The designation as the official state cookie on July 9, 1997.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  16. \n

    The Henry Ford, \u201cToll House Cookies … 1941\u201d<\/a> \u2014 Collection information for the 1941 booklet.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  17. \n

    Famous Amos: The story of Famous Amos<\/a> \u2014 The 1975 founding on Sunset Boulevard and sales built around the bite-size style.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  18. \n

    Mrs. Fields, \u201cAbout\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The company’s own history of its 1977 founding in Palo Alto and of making warm, soft cookies the shop’s hallmark.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  19. \n

    Levain Bakery, \u201cOur Story\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The company’s own history of the 1995 New York bakery, its two founders, and the oversized chocolate walnut cookie.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  20. \n

    Ben & Jerry\u2019s, \u201cThe Epic History of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough\u201d<\/a> \u2014 In the company’s own timeline, the 1984 entry confirms the first shop in Burlington and an anonymous customer’s suggestion, and the 1991 entry confirms the pint launch and the sourcing of dough from Rhino Foods.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  21. \n

    Same company, \u201cChocolate Chip Cookie Dough\u201d<\/a> \u2014 Information on the current product. The difference in how the ice cream dough and home baking dough are treated is based on the company’s existing FAQ, and is not merged into what the timeline alone explains.<\/p>\n<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A single chocolate chip cookie is not simply studded with pieces of the same size. The chocolate scattered through the dough gives each bite a different intensity. It is a cookie baked and shared, beloved in American homes and bakeries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7058,"menu_order":70,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_parade_sweetlore_meta":{"en":"Chocolate Chip Cookie","subtitle":"An American cookie studded with chocolate pieces, chosen for its texture","topics":"Chocolate chips \/ Thickness \/ Doneness","country":"United States","show_toc":true,"ingredients":["chocolate","butter"],"texture":[],"occasion":[],"method":["baked"],"season":[]},"footnotes":""},"sweetlore_category":[151],"class_list":["post-8315","sweetlore","type-sweetlore","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"sweetlore_related_products":null,"sweetlore_related_faqs":null,"sweetlore_related_voices":null,"sweetlore_related_mode":"manual","sweetlore_related_articles":[8254,8248,8249,8250,8251,8255,8257,8258]},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t