First published Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie recipe

By 1938, Ruth Graves Wakefield’s cookbook "Ruth Wakefield’s Tried and True Recipes"—often referred to as Toll House Tried and True Recipes—included the first printed recipe for the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie, now recognized as the earliest documented chocolate chip cookie.[3][10] The Library of Congress notes that the recipe appeared on page 165 of the 1938 edition, though no source records the exact publication day.[3]

Wakefield had developed the cookie at the Toll House Inn by chopping a Nestlé semisweet chocolate bar into pieces and adding them to cookie dough, expecting the chocolate to melt; instead, it held its shape, producing distinct chips.[10] The enthusiastic response from guests led her to codify the recipe and include it in her cookbook, transforming a local specialty into a repeatable formula that home bakers could follow.

This publication is historically significant as a genuine culinary first: it marks the moment the chocolate chip cookie moved from a single inn’s kitchen into printed form, enabling widespread dissemination.[3][10] Wakefield’s work bridged professional and domestic spaces, giving home cooks access to a dessert that would become an American classic.

In the context of the late 1930s, when women’s culinary skills were often undervalued, Wakefield’s authorship and commercial success demonstrated that a woman’s recipe could shape national tastes and influence major food companies. The printed Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie recipe laid the groundwork for its later adoption by Nestlé, the mass production of chocolate chips, and the global spread of the chocolate chip cookie tradition.