A chocolate chip cookie seems so obvious today. It's the classic cookie. However, as obvious as it seems, this particular cookie was not invented until the 1930s. Ruth Graves Wakefield was the genius behind this delicious dessert. After attending college, she worked as a dietician and food lecturer.
In 1930, Wakefield and her husband bought a house halfway between New Bedford and Boston. They decided to build on the house's history as a toll house and made it into an inn, the Toll House Inn. Wakefield cooked and baked for the Inn's guests, and one of her favorite recipes was for Butter Drop Do cookies.
However, one day she ran out of baker's chocolate for the cookies and instead used a bar of semi-sweet chocolate from her friend, Andrew Nestle. She expected the chips to melt in the oven but they did not. And so the first batch of chocolate chip cookies was made.
The cookies caught on quickly and were soon immensely popular. Nestle reached an agreement with Wakefield allowing them to print her cookie recipe on the back of their chocolate chip package. They would supply Wakefield with chocolate for the rest of her life.