Did you know that there is a popular myth that America’s favorite dessert, the chocolate chip cookie, was invented and became popular on accident? In the 1930s Ruth Wakefield invited the Chocolate Crunch Cookie recipe in the Toll House Inn, which was a popular restaurant in Massachusetts that she owned with her husband.

There are popular myths from Wakefield unexpectedly ran out of bakers’ chocolate or nuts for a regular ice-cream cookie recipe and, in desperation, replaced them with chunks chopped out of a bar of Nestle bittersweet chocolate, to chocolate accidentally fell into cookie batter to a rushed last-minute replacement ingredient miracle, to Ruth strategically developed the recipe.

Whatever the real story is, the Chocolate Chip cookie’s popularity soared as soon as it hit the scene, as the richness and comfort it provided during the Great Depression and World War two was needed for American soldiers and civilians alike.

According to the Kitchen Project, seven billion chocolate chip cookies are eaten annually and toll house produces 33 thousand cookies a day.

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