Toll House Cookies

Toll House Cookies are the original Chocolate Chip Cookies. With a generous amount of choc chips baked into a crunchy and tender biscuit, it's no wonder they're a classic.

What are Toll House Cookies?

Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies, eventually shortened to Toll House Cookies, were created in the United States by a clever lady named Ruth Wakefield in the late 1930s. Ruth ran the Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts from 1930 to 1967.

The recipe first appeared in Wakefield’s “Tried and True” cookbook in 1938. 

Toll House Cookies were an immediate hit, and have been described as "the perfect antidote to the Great Depression" (which people had been living through for nearly a decade at that time), giving "eaters a brief respite from their quotidian woe."

Like our Anzac Biscuits, the Toll House Cookie became embedded further in US culture and history when they became a popular inclusion in care packages sent to American soldiers serving overseas.

The Recipe for Toll House Cookies

Over the years, the recipe for Toll House Cookies has been tweaked and revised – and variations came to be known as Chocolate Chip Cookies.

In fact, I'd never heard of this name for choc chip cookies until I came across a recipe here in Australia in an old community cookbook designed to raise funds for a charitable organisation.

I already have a recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies on the website, but I was curious to try these Toll House Cookies recipe.

And you can never have too many awesome biscuit recipes, right?!

I'm so glad I baked up these original Choc Chip Cookies following this recipe. The cookies are:

• super crunchy and packed with choc chips
• my new favourite choc chip cookies (and I've tried many recipes over the years)
• easy to make, with an interesting method.

How to make Toll House Cookies

Start by pre-heating your oven to moderate (180 degrees celsius/355 degrees fahrenheit) and greasing 3 baking trays.

TIP: Measure out the butter and melt it first so the butter so it can cool while you are measuring out the other ingredients and starting to mix up the cookie dough. If the butter is piping hot it might melt the chocolate chips – something you want to avoid.

Next, add the egg to a mixing bowl and beat well. If using a handheld electric mixer, beat on med-high for about 30 seconds (see picture 1 below).

Add the sugar and beat again until the mixture is smooth and a paler colour (see picture 2 below).

Add both the vanilla and choc chips and stir into mixture with a spoon until combined (see picture 3 below).

Sift half of the flour into the mixture and stir into mixture with a spoon until combined. Sift the other half of the flour into the mixture and stir again until combined (see picture 4 below).

Add the melted butter (see picture 5 below) and stir into the mixture with a spoon until combined (see picture 6 below).

Place small heaps of the cookie dough onto the greased trays, leaving room for cookies to spread a little.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Allow cookies to cool on trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling tray using a pallet knife.

Variation ideas

• Substitute half of the choc chips for peanuts.
• Substitute brown sugar for white sugar for crunchier cookies.

Recipe FAQs

Q. How do I store these cookies?

Once the cookies have completely cooled, store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Q. Why are my cookies flat?

If your cookies have flattened too much during cooking, it's likely that your oven was too hot. Reduce the oven temperature next time.

Q. Do you have other recipes from the US?

I also have a fabulous recipe for Texas Sheet Cake along with a lovely Key Lime Pie recipe.

Q. Do you have other cookie/biscuit recipes?

Plenty! There's Melting Moments, Honey Jumbles, Snickerdoodles and more.