Whenever I bake homemade cookies, I think back to one time when my younger sister accidentally added too much butter and the cookies were spoiled. At the time, I was more hangry than Cookie Monster while waiting for a fresh batch, but now I look back at this memory and smile. Homemade cookies allow room in the recipe for more than just a secret ingredient; they also allow for a nostalgia that make the cookies taste better than anything else.
For as long as I can remember, I have always been a chocolate chip cookie connoisseur. I have tried all different homemade recipes, different cookie dough brands, and traveled to different bakeries. However, Toll House slice and bake cookies are still my favorite. By favorite, I mean they taste the best, but do the pre-prepared cookies take away something else?
The Dough Behind Toll House Cookies
In 1930, Kenneth and Ruth Wakefield purchased a toll house as an Inn for travelers in-between Boston and New Bedford. Here, people were taken in with open arms and Ruth provided them with homemade meals. Her desserts called attention to people all over New England.
In one batch of Ruth’s Butter Drop Do cookies, a colonial day staple, she added small pieces of a Nestlé Semi-Sweet Chocolate bar with the expectation that they would diffuse into chocolate cookies. It doesn’t take being Rachel Ray to know that if you put chocolate chips into cookie dough, you get chocolate chip cookies.
The Final Product
Eventually, Nestlé agreed to put Ruth’s “toll house” recipe on the back of their chocolate bars and pre-cut them into breakable pieces. Subsequent to the Great Depression, people were hungry for the comfort and warmth from chocolate chip cookies.
During WWII Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House cookies were sent to soldiers overseas as well. Homemade cookies not only add to a bonding experience in the kitchen but also to the consumer.
Today
Technology has taken the authenticity from homemade chocolate chip cookies by manufacturing them into pre-made, ready to bake packages. Yes, this certainly makes baking cookies easier, being that the cookies always taste delicious, but this also takes away a more important aspect—the baking experience in both making and giving people fresh cookies.
I don’t know about you, but going to the supermarket to buy the ingredients, measuring everything just right, having a flour/dance party in my kitchen, and waiting by the oven were the rich chocolate chips to my childhood cookies, and no pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough can ever take that away.