Chocolate Chips for Molly

The word cookie is derived from the Dutch word "koekje". Back in ye olde colonial America, hard cookies were convenient food for traveling because they kept well. Colonists would have eaten macroons, gingerbread cookies, and "jumbles"--the latter containing nuts, sweetener, and water. The cookies we are familiar with today are usually creamed with butter and sugar, which would have been uncommon in the 18th century.

Chocolate chips cookies were invented in 1937 by Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn located in Whitman, Massachusetts. She had chopped up chucks of Nestlé chocolate bars, and added it to her original cookie recipe. In 1939, Wakefield let Nestlé print her recipe on the chocolate packages in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. (Hmmm, personally, I would had gone for royalties!) In 1941, Nestlé began selling the chocolate in "morsel" chip form to encourage consumers to use the chocolate for baking.

I use the recipe from the Nestlé packaging and during the holidays, I substitute the regular chips with mint Andes chocolates, which give them a green coloring. Of course, I have to unwrap and crack them all, but they are a real crowd pleaser.

These miniature chocolate chip cookies were made by Pippaloo. Molly could have made these if she was willing to spend her butter and sugar rations...