Mark it in your calendars: May 15 is Chocolate Chip Day! (Okay, so it's a theme day in the US. But we think Australia deserves a little chippiness too!) It’s time to bake some cookies, stud your pie dough or even sprinkle a handful into your popcorn and celebrate the fact that we live in a world where you can buy tiny morsels of chocolate-y happiness.
How it all began
Most stories say we have Ruth Graves Wakefield to thank for chocolate chips. The US chef and restaurateur invented the chocolate chip cookie – and thus, the chocolate chip – at her restaurant, the Toll House Inn, in Massachusetts in the late 1930s. She used Nestlé chocolate bars and simply broke them apart to make chunks of chocolate. When Nestlé noticed that sales had increased significantly in the area, company owner Andrew Nestlé paid Wakefield a visit, offering to buy her recipe. He ended up buying it for $1 – and a lifetime supply of chocolate. To this day, the Toll House cookie recipe is printed on Nestlé’s chocolate chip packets.
The great Neiman Marcus scandal
How’s this for sweet revenge? A woman who was charged $250 for US department store Neiman Marcus’s choc chip cookie recipe – aghast and unable to get a refund – emailed the recipe to all her friends, urging them to pass it on. Great story, right? Turns out, that’s all it is: a great story. The ‘Neiman Marcus cookie’ has become the stuff of legend, but in fact, there is no Neiman Marcus café (where the cookie was allegedly sold) and what’s more, the store has never sold cookies. However, in response to the scandal, the company devised a recipe of their own. You can find it – for free – right here.
Beyond cookies
In 1984, Ben and Jerry’s debuted their now-famous chocolate chip cookie dough ice-cream. The idea came from an anonymous note left on the counter of their Burlington, Virginia store.
In the mood for some choc-chippy coolness? Take it to a whole new level with our Double chocolate and dirty mint chip ice-cream sandwiches.
The perfect cookie
How do you like your choc chip cookie? Soft and chewy? Thin and crisp? Or maybe you prefer yours with a cake-style crumb. However you like your cookies, there’s a recipe out there to match. We love Tessa Arias’s four-part guide (!) to the ultimate CCC, where she experiments with different ingredients, utensils, and methods to find the perfect recipe. And on Serious Eats, there’s a 21-step guide to constructing the CCC of your dreams. BYO glass of milk.
Go big
In 2003, the Immaculate Baking Co. created an enormous chocolate chip cookie measuring over 30 metres across, using 2700 kilograms of chocolate chips, a feat recognised by Guinness World Records. If you like to supersize your own choc chip cookie, try our Peanut butter choc-chip ‘skookie’ (skillet cookie).
Source: Chris Chen
Best bar none
Raise the choc chip bar with these Chocolate chip macaroon bars, combining two classics – the cookie and the coconut macaroon. Warm, chewy bar covered in rich, sweet coconut clouds. Well, that’s a big yes, isn’t it?!
Source: Samantha Seneviratne
Chips ahoy!
While there’ll always be a special place in our hearts reserved for chocolate chip cookies, there are more ways to celebrate this holiday:
• Throw some dark chocolate chips into your (buttered, salted) popcorn
• Fold a mix of dark and milk choc chips into good-quality vanilla ice-cream. Top with a tiny sprinkle of sea salt
• Stud choc chips into your pie dough
• Go chip crazy: add to literally any sweet baked good, including pancakes, waffles or French toast
• Swirl through porridge. Go on…
