“There’s nothing more American than Apple Pie.” Wrong! Apple pie, though it has become synonymous with American traditional food, is not actually American at all. It came from across the pond. Some say England, others say Germany, but definitely not here. But this post isn’t about pie, apple or otherwise.

As usual, it’s about cookies. Delicious chocolaty cookies. The very cookies that are, in fact, more American than apple pie. What cookies are those?

Chocolate Chip cookies, of course. These cookies originated in Whitman, Massachusetts, but even more than the location of origin, the manner in which they were created smacks of the Yankee ingenuity for which we’re famous.

It seems that one day, Ruthe Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn, was in the midst of making chocolate cookies when she realized she was out of baking chocolate.  Quick thinking and a search of her larder yielded the idea of using semi sweet chocolate pieces from Nestle assuming that they’d melt into the batter and make it chocolaty during baking.

As we all know, the result was not necessarily the in intended chocolate diffusion, but what a happy accident!

During WWII, local GIs received welcome care packages from their loved ones and shared the chocolate chip cookies with their brothers in arms from other parts of the country. Before long, demand for the cookies was spread throughout the country.

Eventually, Ruth Wakefield sold the recipe for the cookie to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime of free chocolate chips.  To this day, every package of chocolate chips contains a variation of the original recipe on its packaging.

Nestle’s Toll House recipe is still the most widely known way to make chocolate chip cookies, but there are many, many derivations of this tasty treat. Many people add macadamia nuts and use white chocolate chips. Some people substitute M&Ms or add pecans. Personally, I am partial to adding a third cup more chocolate chips than the recipe asks for.

What’s your favorite way to make chocolate chip cookies?