Is there anything that makes everything better like chocolate? Obviously not, that’s why the ultimate in chocolate portability was designed, the chocolate chip.
Chocolate chips are not only easy to transport around, they’re also completely versatile! Want to make any cookie better? Add chocolate chips! (Oatmeal, Macadamia, Peanut Butter?
All cookies that are better with chocolate chips!) National Chocolate Chip Day celebrates these amazing little culinary inventions, and all that they can do.
How to Celebrate National Chocolate Chip Day
Enjoy Food with Chocolate Chips
Well, the first thing to do is remember that National Chocolate Chip Day isn’t just about cookies, it’s about all the things you can include chocolate chips in!
Pancakes, muffins, pudding, ice cream, granola bars, pies, these are just a few of the wonderful creations you can add them to. We’ll be honest though, our favorite way to enjoy chocolate chips? By the handful out of the bag.
Include Chocolate Chips in Each Meal
If you’re really committed to the cause, though, why not add chocolate chips to all of your meals? For breakfast, add some chocolate chips to your cereal or start the day with some delicious chocolate chip pancakes!
For lunch, why not add some chocolate chips to your yogurt? You can then enjoy a tasty chocolate chip muffin or chocolate chip cookie as a midday snack.
And then, finish off the day with some chocolate chip ice cream after your dinner! It’s only one day of the year, so you may as well make the most of it, right?
National Chocolate Chip Day Timeline
Ruth Wakefield Creates the First Chocolate Chip Cookie
At the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, Ruth Graves Wakefield chops a Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bar into bits and mixes them into cookie dough, creating what becomes known as the chocolate chip cookie.
Nestlé Prints Toll House Cookie Recipe and Adds Scoring to Bars
Responding to demand for Wakefield’s cookie, Nestlé makes a deal to print the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie recipe on its semi-sweet chocolate bar wrappers and begins scoring the bars to make them easier to break into pieces.
Commercial Chocolate Chips (Morsels) Reach Grocery Shelves
Nestlé begins producing ready-made semi-sweet chocolate “morsels” specifically for baking, turning the chocolate chip into a distinct, mass-produced ingredient for home cooks.
Chips Ahoy! Brings Packaged Chocolate Chip Cookies to the Masses
Nabisco introduces Chips Ahoy! cookies as one of the first mass-market packaged chocolate chip cookies in U.S. supermarkets, helping make chocolate chip cookies a standard store-bought treat.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Goes Nationwide
After experimenting with chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough in the early 1980s, Ben & Jerry’s rolled out Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream nationwide in the United States, cementing cookie dough and chips as a popular flavor.
History of National Chocolate Chip Day
It all started at a little place you may recognize the name of, the Toll House Inn! Located in Whitman, Massachusetts, it just happens to be the home of that most favorite of cookies, the chocolate chip cookie.
Ruth Graves Wakefield had originally planned on making a chocolate cookie, and decided to do so by throwing in chunks of a chocolate bar into it. In a happy accident, it turned out that the chocolate did not melt and mix with the rest of the cookie, but maintained its shape, filling the cookie with delicious little chocolate bits.
Thus was born the chocolate chip cookie, and the Toll House Cookie Company! From that day forward there have been new forms of chocolate chip added, white chocolate chip, mint chocolate, milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, even dark chocolate.
All of these varieties being added to delicious new recipes to create fantastic new treats for you to enjoy!
But it didn’t immediately go from chocolate bar to chocolate chip, there was a little innovation that happened in between first. Based off of the success of the cookies she made, Nestle agreed to add Ms. Wakefield’s recipe to their wrapper.
What did they pay her for this honor? A lifetime supply of chocolate! Sounds like an awesome deal to us too!
Nestle (and at least one other company) went on to include a chopping tool to help prepare the bars for use in cookies. That is, right up until 1941 when they started selling them as ‘chocolate chips’ or ‘chocolate morsels’.
Originally, the flavor of chocolate chips was semi-sweet. Today, we have seen so many different inventions.
Of course, semi-sweet is still as popular as ever. However, we’ve also got white and dark swirled, white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate chips to feast on. Your imagination is the only limit when it comes to baking with this ingredient.
Bonus: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pops Recipe
If you take a look on the Internet, you will see some exciting recipes for National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. One of our favorite recipes is chocolate chip cookie dough pops. Here’s how to make them…
Ingredients
- 10 oz dark chocolate melting wafers
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup of sugar
- 1 ½ cups of brown sugar
- 1 cup of unsalted butter, which has been softened to room temperature
- 1 ¾ cup of all-purpose flour
- Sprinkles are optional!
Instructions
- Grab a large bowl and place the sugars and softened butter inside. Use an electric mixer to combine the two ingredients until they are creamy.
- Add the salt and vanilla extract. Stir well.
- Gradually add the sifted, cooled flour mixture. Stir until the ingredients are combined fully.
- Now, we’re ready for the chocolate chips! Stir them in.
- You should now have your cookie dough mixture. Scoop it up into one and ½ tablespoon-sized balls. Roll the mixture between your palms until it is smooth.
- Place the dough balls onto a baking sheet that has been lined with wax paper, and leave it to chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
- While the cooking dough is chilling in the fridge, you can prepare a box of the cookie dough pops to be placed inside. You can use a piece of styrofoam or any sort of box that you have in the home whereby a tiny hole can be pierced into the surface. Make sure that the cake pop stick is going to fit through the hole and that the stick will be supported once the cookie dough has been added to the end of it.
- Once your cookie dough balls are fully chilled, you can then prepare the melting wafers. There should be instructions on the package. It is best to follow this.
- Place a cake pop stick into a cookie dough ball, and then dip it into the melted chocolate. Drain off any excess chocolate, and add some sprinkles if you want to.
The Science and Secrets Behind Chocolate Chips
Chocolate chips may look simple, but there’s a surprising amount of science and history behind them.
From how they are designed to hold their shape in the oven to how their size and ratios affect the final cookie, these small ingredients play a big role in texture, flavor, and the classic chocolate chip cookie experience.
Industrial “Chips” Are Formulated Not To Lose Their Shape
Commercial chocolate chips are engineered differently from chocolate bars so they can survive a hot oven without simply melting into a puddle.
Many brands use a slightly lower cocoa butter content and add stabilizers such as soy lecithin or a higher proportion of sugar and milk solids, which raises the melting point and helps the pieces keep their distinctive teardrop or disc shape while still softening enough to create pockets of molten chocolate.
Standard Chip Sizes Quietly Shape Cookie Texture
Baking companies recognize at least three common chip sizes, and each one affects the final cookie differently.
Standard morsels are around 1,000 pieces per pound, while “mini” chips can be roughly 2,000 to 3,000 per pound and “jumbo” or “chunk” formats far fewer.
More, smaller chips distribute chocolate flavor evenly and encourage a more uniform crumb, while larger pieces create dramatic pockets of melted chocolate and can cause cookies to spread and crack in distinctive ways.
The Classic Toll House Ratio Became a Baking Template
The original Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe, published in the late 1930s, used a now-classic balance of flour, fat, sugar, and semi-sweet chocolate pieces that has been copied and tweaked by generations of bakers.
Food historians note that its proportions of brown to white sugar and generous inclusion of chocolate morsels created the chewy, slightly crisp edge that many Americans still consider the “standard” chocolate chip cookie, influencing countless commercial and home recipes worldwide.
World War II Care Packages Helped Popularize Chocolate Chips
Chocolate chip cookies and the chips inside them spread across the United States during World War II through care packages mailed to soldiers.
Servicemen from New England received boxes of Toll House–style cookies from home and shared them with troops from other regions, creating demand for the recipe and for ready-to-use chocolate morsels when those soldiers returned home after the war.
Chocolate Chips Help Anchor a Multibillion-Dollar Cookie Market
Chocolate chip cookies remain the dominant style of packaged cookie in the United States, and chocolate chips are a core ingredient driving that market.
Industry analyses estimate that cookies account for several billion dollars in annual U.S. sales, with chocolate chip varieties consistently leading the category and helping sustain a steady demand for baking chips sold both to industrial bakeries and home bakers.
“Drop Cookies” Turned Chips into a Home-Baking Staple
The rise of “drop cookies” in 20th-century American cookbooks made chocolate chips an everyday pantry item.
Instead of rolled and cut dough, home bakers were encouraged to simply drop spoonfuls of soft batter studded with chocolate pieces onto baking sheets, saving time and skill.
This technique, paired with pre-sized morsels, helped standardize results and made the chocolate chip cookie one of the most approachable recipes for novice bakers.
Modern Chips Range From Single-Origin to Allergy-Friendly
Today’s baking chips extend far beyond basic semi-sweet morsels.
Manufacturers now produce single-origin dark chocolate chips that highlight specific cocoa-growing regions, dairy-free and soy-free chips for people with allergies, and even chips made from alternative sweeteners like coconut sugar or sugar alcohols.
These variations allow bakers to adjust flavor intensity, sweetness, and dietary profile without changing the familiar cookie format.
