Chocolate Chip Cookie

The chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts in 1938 — she chopped a bar of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate and mixed the pieces into her butter cookie dough, expecting them to melt. They didn't — they softened but held their shape, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Nestlé acquired the recipe in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate and printed the "Toll House Cookie" recipe on every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips, where it remains today. The recipe on the back of the yellow bag is the most reproduced recipe in American baking history.

A round, golden-brown cookie, approximately 8cm in diameter, with a slightly crispy edge, a soft, chewy centre, and pockets of melted-but-intact chocolate chips throughout. The dough: butter, white and brown sugar (the brown sugar provides chewiness and caramel depth), eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, and semi-sweet chocolate chips. The exterior should be golden; the interior should be barely set — slightly underdone by bread standards, which produces the chewy texture.