CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DAY

National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day is a day that is celebrated on May 15th or August 4th, especially in the U.S., as it is primarily an American holiday that celebrates the creation of the chocolate chip cookie, which is one of the most popular cookies in the U.S.

Chocolate Chip Cookie History

In 1937, Ruth Graves Wakefield of Whitman Massachusetts must have been curious about what a bit of chocolate would add to her cookies. While working at the Toll House Inn, she added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestle chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. The cookies were a huge success and in 1939 Wakefield signed an agreement with Nestle to add her recipe to the chocolate bar’s packaging. In exchange for the recipe, Wakefield received a lifetime supply of chocolate. The Nestle brand Toll House cookies were named for the Inn.

Nestle initially included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars, too. Starting in 1941, Nestle and other competitors started selling the chocolate in chip or morsel form. For the first time, bakers began making chocolate chip cookies without chopping up the chocolate bar first. 

Chocolate chips originally came in semi-sweet. Later, chocolate producers began offering bittersweet, semi-sweet, mint, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white and dark swirled. Today, chips also come in a variety of other flavours that bakers and candy makers use creatively in their kitchens.

While cookies may be the first treat to come to mind, imagination is really the only thing limiting how chocolate chips can be used in baking and candy making. Even savoury dishes feature chocolate chips in a variety of ways, too. Had Ruth Graves Wakefield never wondered what a few chopped up chunks of chocolate would be like in her baking, we wouldn’t even have chocolate chip cookies.  

No one really knows who started National Chocolate Chip Day, however. In fact, there are multiple dates in existence on which the holiday is supposed to be celebrated. Some people celebrate it in conjunction with National Chocolate Day, and some celebrate it in conjunction with National Cookie Day.

CELEBRATING CHOCOLATE CHIP DAY

The only real way to celebrate National Chocolate Chip Day is by preparing chocolate chip cookies and consuming them. It is also customary on this day to bake chocolate chip cookies and pass them out to family, friends and co-workers. Will you celebrate this delicious holiday?