The History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie - Depression vs WW2
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
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Watch me try some British biscuits over on Sorted Food: czcams.com/video/cD41X8ebNrk/video.htmlsi=mNFznBVLDslt6FB2
You're amazing max!😊😊😊❤❤❤❤
6:42 *_"If you're resting on your laurels, you're wearing them on the wrong end."_*
-- Unknown
The biscuit video isn't there.
Could you post a direct link to the biscuit video? Can't find it in their channel.
@@KMHill we got our time zones crossed. It’ll be up in 20 minutes
My grandmother raised four children during WWII. When she told you how to make something, it was like a flowchart: “Use X. But if you don’t have X, use Y and Z. And if you don’t have Z, use a little Q…” My grandfather used to warn people not to listen to her because “she’ll mess you up!”
😂that’s a real cook! I’m the same way and I’m 39.
My grandma came see my mom, she had a popped blood vessel and was in the hospital. Grandma wanted to bake her baby girl a cake. We did not have any flavorings for the cake. She use kool aide for the cake flavor. She used the lemonade packet. Cake was very good too.
@@HuggieBear39 my dad is an amazing cook, but he has no plan.
every sunday he cooks for the family (my mum, my brother, himself, my brothers ex-girlfriend and my nephew.
he just wings it every time and he doesn't know what he did when he's done.
Seems like not everyone got the essence. Strong woman, your grandma. She has been through a lot.
I find using recipes as a guide and substituting ingredients can make for delicious food combination discoveries!
In the summer of 1967, I was in boot camp for the Navy. Some of the guys would get letters from their wives or girlfriends asking them how they'd liked the chocolate chip cookies that they'd sent. The only problem was that they hadn't received them. One guy wrote to his wife, asking for some very "special" chocolate chip cookies, and she shipped a batch --- made from chopped up Ex-Lax instead of chocolate chips. We didn't see our company commander for two days, and from then on, everybody got their cookies.
Deserved. Gigachad sailor
Ooooh. Good thinking.
Y'a, the guy went looking for that one 😂
😂🤣I guess you could say he bit off more than he could chew there, and to top it off he probs ate so many cookies he didn't know which batch it was.
My mom did this to her boss Friday before hunting season because he was always helping himself to her lunch
The fact that chocolate chip cookies are less than a century old is a little mindblowing. They've always been THE standard cookie in my mind.
That's speculoos for me but yeah I'm also flemish so
Maybe who knows... people experimented a lot with food over the centuries even before the medieval days i'm sure someone came across it before factories were a thing from the 1920s, i'm betting they did in fact because they made sticky things even back then as soon as they figured out how to harvest honey that was always the go to in order to make something sweet. Apart from some cultures that chewed sugar canes raw and still do.
Making batters was figured out a long long time ago and chocolate as far as we know has been used for 4,000 years, so i'm sure somebody thought about it. They used a lot more fruit and nuts though because it was the cheapest but i'm betting they made some kind of cookie with everything in them whenever they had chocolate.
@@anfearaerach: What? Don't speculaas date back to the year diddly dot? I am shocked!
Yes and no. Chocolate as we know it hasn't been around for all that long, which explains the relatively recent emergence of the great chocolate chip cookie. An emergence so recent that even Australians will use the word "cookie" rather than biscuit for it.
@@resourcedragon Chocolate bars are recent but they used to drink chocolate as a sort of special thing or rituals, want to bet they mixed it into cakes and what they called biscuits aka cookies too?. The batter would have been more like the world war II cookie batter more gloopy no doubt but i bet they made them.
Ruth Wakefield was actually a brilliant businesswoman. You can't patent a recipe in the US, so it was going to get out anyways, or Nestle could have come up with their own version in-house. What she negotiated with Nestle was that they could print her recipe on the bag for $1, a lifetime supply of chocolate, and a consulting deal....as long as they also included a number for customers to order her Toll House cookbook. Which she made piles of money off of. She also got free advertising for her Toll House Inn and restaurant. Her net worth was around $5 million, not adjusted for inflation.
That works out to 108,000,000 today.
Amazing!
My takeaway- If you're going to screw up a big company, do it with chocolate chip cookies.
@@KendallM0219yeah? How did you calculate that? That’s amazing
A
I work as a maintenance technician for Nestle. Where we make chocolate chips and refrigerated cookie dough.
The main machines I am responsible for are the depositors that make the chocolate chips or, as we call them "morsels."
The morsels you used, almost guaranteed, came from our plant and "my" depositors.
It's pretty cool to see you did a video on this.
Thank you for doing your part in making content like this possible!
Thank you for your part in making chocolate morsels possible!
Keep up the good work, we are counting on you.
@ty-chicalmes4642 - Thank you for your service to humanity.
Hope you can find a less cartoonishly evil company to do this great work for :]
The reason your "depression era" cookie recipe was so sticky: the shortening has changed! A few years ago all shortening in the US changed over to a non-trans-fat version (usually palm kernel oil). This makes the shortening quite soft, and drastically impacts baking. The best way to correct this is to reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe. Perhaps cooking down the maple syrup would do the trick.
Would lard work as a sub?
Lard would be a better substitute. Lard is equal substitute for butter, whereas shortening is a subsidiary for margarine. Cookies made with margarine will are ways be really soft in a wierd way. Where as butter made cookies will be crispy on the edge and soft in the center
@@prairiemeadowhomestead thank you. I only use butter and lard in my cooking. Won't touch liquid oils. It's nice to know if I don't have butter for a recipe, I can use lard.
I used to use margarine in the 90s for cookies but it was usually the stick margarine @@prairiemeadowhomestead
Lard is the best when cooking using almost half instead of butter works great. @@lightshine6851
My mother worked at the Toll House and I grew up listening to her tell great stories about famous people who she served at the Toll House. The waitstaff could not write down anybody's order, it all had to be memorized. I grew up on the myth that they were a happy accident when they were out of cocoa powder, so Ruth used the chopped up chocolate hoping it would spread to make a chocolate cookie. I enjoyed listening about the other myths and the reality. My mother is 84 now and she still fondly recounts her days spent at the Toll House. I remember when it burned down and the loss that was felt in our neck of the woods. I can't wait to show my mother this video! I'm sure a few tears will be shed while my mother reminisces. Thank you so much for this episode; it warmed my heart!
Thanks for sharing your mom's story. I hope she gets a kick out of this video too
Would like to see you do something on the history of using mushrooms in food, i.e. chantarelled, morels, truffles, etc. And how people figured out what they could and couldn't eat.
@@OrganicPolymer2312 and the history of the cat that poops out coffee beans and then we use them
@@Kruppt808There's really not that much history on that one; some magazine published an article about it, then a bunch of rich people demanded it, and now there's a whole animal abuse industry capturing wild civets and force-feeding them coffee beans. It's ridiculously cruel and pointless.
I know everyone loves a good story about how a famous recipe was an accident. But it's also mildly insulting to the creator to assume she couldn't have come up with such a good idea herself, lol.
Advice from someone that worked at a cookie store:
* cream your sugar and butter together until it’s a light tan/cream color, however the longer you do this the lighter and fluffier they’ll be.
* Don’t add your chips/toppings at the end, because the chips will fall out of the dough. Add them in right *before* the dough is finished mixing, before it begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
* scrape the bowl! You want everything uniformly mixed to get a consistent dough
* The eggs are done mixing when the dough has a velvety look and an oily sheen to it
Any thoughts on stiffening up the maple&honey dough?
I know the problem is from the added water they contain. Just adding more flour, even if self rising (to maintain the salt/soda ratio), might not work well.
Thanks for sharing!!
@@TEDoddCould try adding in a spoonful of coconut flour - it absorbs far more water than wheat flour
Don't forget to put a little bit of the dry mix in a bowl and coat the chocolate chips with it, then put them in right before the dough is finished mixing along with the bit of dry mixture. Coating them with a bit of the dry mixture makes sure they stay put, it's a trick you use when baking muffins too.
@@CarolMcxxx sounds promising. I like the idea of honey and syrup for the flavor. Just need to get the dough stiffer.
History is often broken down into eras and ages: The modern era, the nuclear age, the information age, etc.
I think we ought to add an age for pre and post chocolate chip society. I just can't imagine living in the former.
I know ! Seems rather uncivilized if you ask me. 😂😂😂😂
@Orzorn - There are MANY wonderful cookies in the human pantheon of baking - Toll House cookies stand shoulder to shoulder with them.
Whats wild to me is that we have congresspeople that were born in the pre-chocolate chip society
Isn't that what BC stands for Before Cookies? Lol.
@@emeraldend9231i think you might be right. It fits.
BCE. Before Cookie Era.
Anyone else find it a delight when Max does his Radio Announcer Voice?
Yes! I could listen to him read vintage ads all day 😂
I think he didn't quite get it fully but the attempt counts
I could live off that and hard tack *clack clack*
@NomtheGnome - ACTING!
I can't stand it. Nobody talked like that, it might have been an artifact of the low fidelity radio and recording equipment of the time. You don't hear it after about 1940 even from the same announcers.
I once toured an air craft carrier. The chocolate chip cookie recipe was pasted on the wall next to a massive mixer. It included 110 pounds of chocolate chips and 1 quart of vanilla extract.
WHOA!! A quart of vanilla and 110 lbs of chocolate chips.............that really boggles the mind.
I just wonder how much of flour, and butter...
and how many cookies their recipe made in one batch, but those must be company secrets. 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
@@heidimisfeldt5685 I didn't have a camera, and this was before cell phones, so that was all I can remember. They did show the whole recipe, to feed about 1000 crew.
I wonder if any of those cooks may have sampled a bit of that vanilla extract for the alcohol content it has.
My dad that served in the US Army in WW II Europe was aware of the field kitchen cooks requisitioning a lot of vanilla extract to get drunk on.
Dear Max,
I'm battling some intense food poisoning right now. Smells are incredibly triggering. Despite that, your video is a tonic for my violent gullet. Thank you for this video.
All the best,
Ben (who normally does not write comments like letters)
Hope ya feel better soon
It's sometimes hard to believe chocolate chips are younger than the GI generation and some of the Silent Generation.
Younger than sliced bread, so I think we should start saying: "That's the best thing since chocolate chip cookies!"
Well, cookies with chocolate were not new in 1938. A lot of families would make such cookies at home every now and then as a sort of special treat. What seems to have never occurred to anyone before was marketing the cookies for their own sake, and a huge part of what sold the Tollhouse recipe was reaching out to national figures like Husted, who could make a recipe for boiled eggs trendy with her influence. So before the late 1930s, such cookies were a thing a few people did on their own for fun, but after the market blitz, they became something every home had to do just to "keep up with the Jones."
In other words, social media a la 1940s made the lowly chocolate cookie cookie a national tradition.
My mother was born in 1936 and I would tease her that she was older than chocolate chip cookies and potato chips 😂
i seriously doubt this one american was the first person to think to put chocolate on cookies
If that really tickles your curiosity you must be boring as all hell. Chocolate chips, just chocolate in pieces, is one of the most pointless inventions. You must also find chopped nuts as interesting as atomic energy
Genuinely surprised this cookie is so young. Chocolate chip cookies seem like they've been around forever.
The chocolate milk bar is quite recent too. So it's only very recent for them to be affordable for the common people.
Love your videos. Just wanted to let you know that a "teaspoon" for measuring your cookie dough was not a measuring teaspoon, but the spoon you have in the silverware drawer, use on the table & eat with. It was also always heaping, so a half would have been about 3/4-1in ball. It was one of the last strange recipe measurements.
My Grandmother said that as well. She's still the greatest cook/baker I've known so I have to back you up on that 😊
I grew up with this one too, the 'teaspoon' was closer to a Tbs today. Making old recipes is an adventure sometimes 😁
🍪🍪🍪 To many people from most nations, a teaspoon full means just what you described, a heaping teaspoon full, using whatever teaspoon from among your spoons in the drawer. You would use a second teaspoon to help place it onto the baking sheet.
And sometimes you will see a "dessertspoon" used as well. Those are the larger spoons that people use to eat puddings and such. My copy of the Edmond's Cookery Book from 1983 still uses that terminology.
Makes sense
Laughed right out loud at "fig newtons are a form of self punishment". I preferred fig newtons, and more so the other fruit newton cookies over chocolate chips cookies while growing up because my mom's homemade chocolate chip cookies always tasted bitter to me, likely because of the amount of the baking soda in the recipe she used.
So where did you bury all those bodies?
Yess! I have a handwritten copy of the recipe written BY RUTH! It was passed to me from my grandmother! ive since gotten it laminated and photocopied and the copy is what i use today, but keep the original in our fire safe with the passports.
and before even getting a few minutes in, you're absolutely right, they're crispy and buttery! such a staple of my childhood!
For those who have not yet laminated their rare documents-please don’t! 🤦
@@katebowers8107you got that right.
@katebowers8107 That was my first thought. A ruined historical treasure, losing its museum quality, with amazing antique value. How unfortunate!
@@robinhollenbeck367
No, it’s fine. It’s done. Especially if you did it to make it safe to keep or use in a kitchen. I just felt that, for anyone who is thinking of laminating something historic, to suggest they make a copy for everyday use and put the original away safely without altering it.
@@katebowers8107 wow! didn't know not to at the time! But yeah this is something that's staying in the family! I did it originally to keep it protected, as it was already starting to fade and degrade, and had stains on it from years and years of use from many kitchens!
I'll remember in the future though! Thank you :)
Ok, I was not expecting an episode of Tasting History to bring a tear to my eye, but here we are. That WWII recipe cookie looks, (and even sounds like when bitten) my grandmothers cookies from when I was a little kid. She's been gone about 30 years now. But now in early December is about when she'd start baking big batches of 12 different cookies for Christmas. Thanks so much for this episode, it was as bittersweet as those old chocolate bars.
♥️
That honey and maple syrup sounds really good to me.
Going to make a batch for some good nostalgia?
Yes, grandmother cookies! Like you, when I heard that soft crunch as he bit into the rationing-friendly cookie, I was transported to a different time, looking up at the counter and calculating if burning my fingers was was better than waiting. (Waiting was never better.)
I thought the same. My grandma used shortening over butter in most of her baked goods, and I never knew that it was a rationing thing!
That is so lovely. I miss my Grandma too.
the way Max described the ww2 ration friendly cookie really really reminded me of my grandma's cookies. soft but crispy, not as sweet, but definitely something good on a cold autumn afternoon when you flew halfway cross the country to see your mom's side of the family. I'll have to call her and see if she's got the recipe on hand, i wonder if its simillar
Max once again with the hard hitting history research. Someone has to get the cookie claims right! Forcing himself through numerous batches of cookies, he leaves with a winner and gets our appreciation for his sacrifices.
It's crazy to think that something as deceptively simple as the chocolate chip cookie is only 100 years old. That was basically last week in comparison to all of human history.
Also, it speaks to Ruth Wakefield's expertise as a baker that the rationed version is still tasty; not a lot of substitute food is that good.
Bro in comparison to all of human history, 100 years ago is basically just earlier this morning.
right, im bad with math :)@@asmodiusjones9563
another one that messes me up are brownies, earliest recipe is from 1898! a simple cake with no leavening, hows that possible
My G-Ma used sugar beets for the sugar content. It turned stuff a red color, but it was super sweet.
@DoctorRobertNeville beet sugar comprises 55% of the United States sugar on market shelves.
I was in the Peace Corps 45 years ago. Not much foodstuffs was available. No chocolate chips or brown sugar. So we made brown sugar by adding molasses to white sugar. We chopped up a candy bar for chips. Worked great! A little taste of home!
Cool! TIL that's how brown sugar is made commercially, by adding molasses to white sugar.
The molasses added to white sugar is pretty much what brown sugar is...
@@meloniedehart9572 yes, I know. That’s why we did it that way.
@@seileach67yeah its kinda silly. They take the molasses out to make white sugar, then have to add it back in to make brown.
@@seileach67 its not quite "made" like that, its rather that the molasses gets extracted to produce white/"clean"/"pure" sugar in a previous step. with adding molasses you are reversing the step and recolor the white sugar.
When I was a teenager and we were traveling from Wyoming to Missouri for Christmas, my mom found a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies. We weren’t allowed to eat any until we got in the road! They were terrible! My mom’s cookies 🍪 were always so good, she was embarrassed and promptly threw the recipe away when we got home and wrote a complaint letter. We all laughed for years to come. Thanks fir the memory
Hey Max, you can still get the yellow label semi-sweet chocolate bar! They're labeled as "Baking Bars" nowadays. Idk if they come in 7oz bars (or larger) anymore because the couple I have are only 4oz. 😁
My grandma was born in 1926, and has been gone for 6 years now. Food was her love language to us, she was always feeding everyone. She loved making chocolate chip cookies, and as a teenager I asked her for her recipe, expecting some closely kept family secret recipe, and she said it was just the recipe from the Nestle chocolate chip bag :) always loyal to the brand as well.
Lol! That happened to me too! I still use my « grandmother’s « recipe to this day. Miss you Gran!
are you Phoebe from friends LOL
Best chips are Aldi’s mini choc chips but WM are fine too
Nestlè is nothing special but even Ghirardelli are no longer special
U would have to get European chocolate now to have good choc
My Mom was a teenager in tge 1930s when they came out. When they were visiting their aunt after they came out they all decided to make them. But their aunt demanded they use unsweetened bakers chocolates instead of the semisweet chocolate. The aunt won and they were made with bitter chocolate and they were terrible. My Mom was laughing about it when she told me this story, further cementing my Aunt's status as a tyrant.
I have a friend that always tries to make desserts with sugar substitutes. Everything tastes like shit. Even when I gave her a super detailed but easy recipe for shortbread chocolate chip cookies, she managed to f... them up. 😢
@@Bakerygo some people just can't bake. Not sure how they screw things up, but they do.
And yet I'm pretty sure Mum used to make chocolate chip cookies with unsweetened chocolate bits and the dough was sweet enough that the result was _delicious._
@@Hippiechick11 Baking is easy to screw up, time or temp or substitutions, even altitude! (which alters temps via water boiling sooner) will easily throw off the whole chemistry of a recipe. What's hard to mess up is general cooking, but my cousin, oh lawd, she once put a pan on the stove, added water, turned on the burner to boil it and forgot until the coating was smoking. She literally burnt water.
The WWII recipe sounds a lot like my grandmas, which makes sense as she grew up around then. Her recipe also calls for shortening and really doesn't need to refrigerate. Regarding the teaspoons, I have gathered through experience that this is basically taking a couple of spoons meant for tea and scooping with the two onto the baking sheet. Basically you round off the scoop with the other spoon.
This was such a fun video! My grandma and her sisters all worked at the tollhouse restaurant in their teens. It's fun hearing the true story in your epic story telling style.
In response to "You don't really bake fig newtons at home," my grandma made them all the time. They were much better than the store-bought ones, of course. Also, I find it interesting that my grandma was also born before chocolate chip cookies. Just goes to show how recent some things are that have become such a staple of our society!
Would you mind leaving her recipe? I'd loved to do a comparison for myself.
When my father was stationed oversees in the 1970s my mother would send him baked goods. We'd make date cookies because they traveled well.
I once had a recipe for “fig newtons” but no more. The filling could be varied. Pretty sure there’s a recipe somewhere in and older cookbook.
My great grandma used to make these cookies when my great uncles went overseas in WW2. My grandpa was still a boy at the time and he said she was always so tense while making them because she was baking them in a wood fire stove. She had to modify the time everytime so as not to burn them and she didnt want to waste them by hurning them. They hadnt gotten a modern oven yet as they lived in rural Kansas.
Using the oven in a wood-fired stove really takes patience and skill!
Grew up on the Depression version, My Mother was from that Era and the ones you made look identical. Still my preferred Cookie.
Hobart mixers are awesome! They are the precursors to KitchenAid and are TOUGH. You can still get the vintage ones, but you might have some cleaning to do. A lot of them are pretty dirty, due to age and all that. It helps if you know something about small motors because usually something needs to be replaced. Take care of them though and they'll probably last another 50+ years.
I still remember the first time my mom let me “help” in the kitchen. It was this recipe. Those were the best cookies ever. And I didn’t even burn myself😊
I think my favorite story about WWII rationing is the fact my great grandparents were sugar hoarders. He had one of the biggest sweet teeth out there and couldn't bear the thought of reducing the sweetness of his morning cup or having fewer desserts. So he built a hidden sugar safe in the pantry, although I was never sure how they kept it stocked. We have wondered if later owners of the house ever found the safe and what was in it (if anything).
Darn, i was about to ask you how he did it... i guess the best ways to "break the law" are when you dont get caught, and in this case, it worked because nobody knows how he did it! ;D
My grandpa's dad was a butcher and they lived in the farm areas of a larger city, so what they'd do was "legal" in that they bartered. So for instance during hunting season, neighbors and their families would bring in deer and he bartered butchering it for some venison steaks and all the scraps. Those scraps were mixed with extra trimmings from other critters for enough fat and turned into salami. Which he then cured and traded for eggs or butter in the spring.
@@mwater_moon2865People were really inventive during war rationing, I love the stories. It's really a shame that back then people would be creative with what they could get, or rural households with enough land would raise a few animals, or anyone with enough space for a flowerbed would grow a Victory Garden, but nowadays if a large country at war or some other industrial production hardship attempted to implement rationing we'd riot over it.
My mom showed me how to make Chocolate Chip cookies as a kid and I make some at least every 3 months now! I made them with Crisco butter flavored shortening two or three times but with white and brown sugar and it was definitely more sticky in dough form! I just made a batch of cookies with whole wheat flour a few days ago and they are a bit darker when cooked! I learned to store them with a slice of bread and they stay soft and chewy!
When you said she missed out on the opportunity to get rich-- I think she knew EXACTLY what she was doing. You said it yourself-- she was a home ec teacher. Home economics teaches, among other things, household management, budgeting, and finances. (My mom was a home ec teacher.) But my mother also taught that recipes (like garden seeds) are for SHARING, and I think that's exactly what she did. She'd already gotten her value from the cookies (free advertising for the inn!). What she was doing, for the token price of $1, was sharing her recipe with the rest of the world. (Brava.)
Please do brownies next! They have an interesting history, too. Mildred Brown "Brownie" Schrumpf was an amazing person and too interesting to pass up not learning more about.
If you want the chewy variety like Max refers to rather than crunchy or crumbly texture, decrease flour by 1/4 cup and granulated sugar by 1/4 cup, increase brown sugar by at least 1/4 cup, add a spoonful of black molasses (honey is an okay substitute too) and I highly recommend the bottom rack of a convection oven for even cooking. You won’t really need to press them down, they’re going to bake super flat but stay really soft for days and won’t fall apart into crumbs all over the place when you bite into them. 👍
Also stick the batter in the fridge for at least half an hour before cooking. I roll the chilled dough into a ~1/4 cup ball, and that minimizes the butter spread, leaving a much thicker top with less of a spread.
Thanks for the information - though I definitely prefer crunchy cookies.
I like the chewy ones. Thanks.
I like them chewy but crispy on the edges.
And made with all brown sugar.
Thank you. I started making these when I was still in grade school, followed the recipe on the bag (used butter), and wondered what I could do to make them soft instead of crispy. As an adult woman, I sometimes increased the flour a little or added a little baking powder and apple puree but knew there must be an easier way.
While watching this, my mind drifted back to my childhood in the 1960's and my grandmother would make up a batch from scratch. Oh the wonderful aroma and taste of those fresh baked cookies. Thanks so much for sharing 😀
When she said 1/2 teaspoon, she did not mean measuring spoon, she meant the kind you eat with. You even showed a picture of a girl, under her supervision, spooning the cookie dough onto a sheet.
In the different sets of cutlery and silverware I've inherited from grandparents, the teaspoons are approximately equivalent in capacity to the measuring teaspoon.
Maybe American cutlery has gotten bigger in the last few decades, or you have a large-size set.
@@phantomkate6 ,
I never compared the measuring spoon to the flatware, so I don't know. I'd say the teaspoons have, in my lifetime at least, been the same, but when you scoop dough using half of a flatware teaspoon, it probably measures one measuring teaspoon or a little more, just because the dough bulges out and isn't meant to lie flat or be used as an exact measurement.
fig newtons are just a branded form of the "fig roll". So, you absolutely _can_ make them at home, absent the branding, though it's not a very common homemade cookie to bake in the US.
@colbunkmust - I would like to try baking them one day. I tried the gluten-free "Fig Newmans" made with barley flour instead of wheat and they are my favorite. That simple change is delicious, in my opinion. But they are hard to find. >_
True, I made them once and they were amazing, but definitely more labor intensive than chocolate chip cookies
That would NOT be gluten free. Delicious I'm sure, but barley is one of the gluten grains. If you bake that for a friend with celiac, don't be disappointed when they turn it down. Consequences for someone with celiac would be severe.😢 I do miss barley.
In 1891, Charles Roser, of Philadelphia, was a fig lover. He created a recipe and invented a machine that could insert the filling into the dough. His recipe and invention were purchased by The Kennedy Biscuit company in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. The biscuit company made numerous pastries named after local towns, thus the Fig Newton was born.
Do u have a recipe?
So fun! I’m serving in Bulgaria for a Christian non profit caring for Ukrainian refugees. We can get chocolate chips here, and I have made these numerous times, one of the little girls I care for , they are her favorite. I made her a big batch for her birthday present, she was very happy to say the least 😀
Make her a giant cookie for her Birthday, then place a Birthday candle in it, and sing the Birthday song for her please.
You are wonderful! Thank you for helping the people in Ukraine and making cookies for them.
Slava Ukraine!💖🇺🇦💖🇺🇸💖
What a beautiful soul you have! You should be proud of the work you do to help the neediest people
may the man above bless you soldier, not a christian myself but god bless you for your good work
Ahhh. Just got home from a 12 hour night shift, and here’s Max to cheer me up!
Thank you Max! ❤️
Thank you! After watching this my husband immediately headed to the kitchen to make cookies :) As the primary cook in the household I'm both delighted to not have to do it and mildly terrified he's going to find some way to destroy my kitchen.
Toll House cookies were a staple of my childhood. My mother made them often, but at Christmas, she would double the amount of chips and nuts per batch, making them super special.
Max, congratulations on your '30s-'40s newsreel voice! You do it well, and it definitely spices up the episode.
I think its called the transatlantic accent
I had a history professor in college who had escaped from the Soviet Union. He said that German soldiers finding chocolate in the rations of the dead Americans was extremely disheartening, almost causing them to resign. They had suffered deprivation for years and this was like such an insult
When I was growing up, I had rather adverse reactions when consuming refined sugar (better now, thank goodness) but my mother still made all sorts of sugar-free alternative goodies... Like, ALL of them; if you could make it with honey or maple syrup instead, she did. She clearly didn't want me to feel left out of all the treats families had. lol
Your ration-friendly cookies are probably closer to what I grew up with, than the other ones. But as always, it's really neat to hear the history behind some of the main foods people take for granted all over. ;) Thank you, as always, for putting all that work into it. :)
PS: Have you ever done an episode on stroganof? I can seem to find it in a search on your videos page... but then, I might not be spelling it correctly.
I did that for my kids. Textures of baked goods were a challenge without dry sugar! (p.s. you need another f - stroganoff)
@@pixievincent2478 lol - thanks. I never seem to be able to get that one right, which is why I search both whenever I do a search LOL
Fixed now, in the prior comment.
Max - if you want a truly crisp chocolate chip cookie, you need to make them like a friend from college used to. She was allergic to every grain except rice, so she made hers using the Toll House recipe but substituting rice flour. They came out very crunchy, malty, wonderful. We always asked her to make them, and if she brought them to a party, they were the first food to disappear.
In one of my college theatre classes, we had to create child-friendly short skits/plays dramatizing the creation of famous things - Levi's jeans, ice pops, etc. My group did Mrs. Wakefield and the chocolate chip cookies. So neat to see the story now on your channel.
And now I'm super hungry for chocolate chip cookies.
Speaking of collabs, I wonder how insane it would be if you and Dylan Hollis were to talk baking lol
Nah….I don’t care for Dylan’s style. Max is much more….refined.
That's just his TikToks lol
@@JunkinsallyDylan's long form content here is much more like Max's.
Thank you max for bringing me fun videos to watch before I go to sleep for another twelve hour day. You are my comfort food and I appreciate your work.
Glad you gave a shout out to eating pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough straight out of the tube.
You're absolutely right. That is 100% the best way to eat it!
Out of the bowl for me, I'm such a glutton. I'll make a full batch of dough and me and the kids'll sit around it with our own spoons and just go to town every Christmas Eve.
@@MegaKatThat's not gluttony, that's conservation!
Chocolate chip cookie dough is SO GOOD! 😋
Honestly surprised that the chocolate chip cookie is less than a hundred years old given how widespread and popular they are.
@ChicaneryBear - Yes. I fell for that "Toll House is a Colonial inn" and assumed the cookies were antiques as well, though not THAT old. Marketing bit me again!
If by "widespread and popular" you mean "widespread and popular in the USA", sure.
But there's a whole world outside the USA that doesn't necessarily care that much for them.
@@YaaLFHNo one cares.
@YaaLFH care to cite your sources?
I have been to twenty seven countries across five continents, and in almost every country I have found chocolate chip cookies, and I'm not talking about packaged brand names at the airport. Fresh chocolate chip or chocolate chunk cookies, in local bakeries or cafes. If there is chocolate available and cookies are being made, some variation of this cookie exists.
@@Taolan8472 Just because you managed to find what you're familiar with doesn't mean it's popular, or that they're based on this recipe.
I literally can't imagine my life without chocolate chip cookies. If I wound up in the past I'd have to find a way to manufacture all of the ingredients and convince a baker to let me borrow his oven. I'm very thankful for modern times and soft chewy fresh baked cookies.
I discovered a method of making BROILED chocolate chip cookies that everyone loves. I think this is because the higher temperatures in the broiler result in caramelized sugars within the cookie. An added benefit is that they take only 4 minutes (depending on the broiler) to cook. If you're curious about how to make them, let me know and I'll send the details. Spoiler alert: it's really simple.
I want to know how to make this!
Oooo yes!!!
Please, could you post that recipe???
Thank you!
@@craneoflores It's really quite simple. You'll need the broiler element in the top of your oven, and you'll need to experiment. Use your favorite recipe, set the oven rack to about 12 inches from the broiler element, and turn on your broiler to HIGH. Keep your cookies in the broiler for 4 minutes to start. They should be a mottled brown in color with the parts closer to the element darker than the parts farther away. This is a place to start. Because the broiler is hotter than the oven, they will be melted when you pull them out. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes before transferring them to the wire rack for final cooling. If they're too dark or burnt, reduce the broiler setting to LOW, lower the oven rack, or both, whatever works for you. I hope you enjoy them!
@@Caterina...3 It's really quite simple. You'll need the broiler element in the top of your oven, and you'll need to experiment. Use your favorite recipe, set the oven rack to about 12 inches from the broiler element, and turn on your broiler to HIGH. Keep your cookies in the broiler for 4 minutes to start. They should be a mottled brown in color with the parts closer to the element darker than the parts farther away. This is a place to start. Because the broiler is hotter than the oven, they will be melted when you pull them out. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes before transferring them to the wire rack for final cooling. If they're too dark or burnt, reduce the broiler setting to LOW, lower the oven rack, or both, whatever works for you. I hope you enjoy them!
Of all the fancy desserts I've made, I don't think any of them beats a simple but well executed chocolate chip cookie, or brownie.
you can have all the most decadent rare hand made desserts but the warm happy feelings of a brownie or chocolate chip cookie simply cannot be beat!
No dessert will ever taste better than a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie made with love
I am a home hobby baker and one of my most popular requests is for box brownies that I then doctor up a bit like using Cointreau instead of vanilla extract.
Last time I was this early, hardtrack was a legitimate cookie
Growing up in the early 1950's these cookies were always called toll house by my aunts who always made them .....they looked exactly like those you displayed. They were the first cookie I learned how to bake. Sadly my baking skills did not last, but warm memories of this treat make me teary eyed. They still remain toll house cookies to me.❤
There’s a ridiculously good Thai restaurant near me. The owner hands out her recipes to anyone who asks. She said that no two cooks are going to come up with the exact same product and she said change whatever you want
Might be interesting to do an episode on the $250 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe. We still have the recipe printed out on the green and white printer paper that you tore the little holes off of because I think my mom found it on the early internet. We had to have made thousands of them when I was growing up.
The urban legend/hoax about Neiman Marcus, or in some versions, Marshall Field. Ann Landers once lambasted a hoaxers who wrote a letter to her column trying to pass on this story!
By the look on Max’s face he burnt a few cookies figuring out the bake time😅😊 Thank you for your sacrifice!
My father was attached to USNATO in the early 1980s and we lived in Belgium... where I would occasionally come across pre-packaged chocolate chip cookies that many of our European friends referred to as "Maryland cookies," although they could never explain where that name came from!
I'm always excited every Tuesday to watch one of your videos during my lunch break. They're a real comfort. I work at a bakery as their dishwasher, and it's a true delight to be able to immerse myself so much in a food atmosphere. To smell the bacon being sizzled, fresh bread being pulled out from the oven, the cinnamon and sugars as they bake various delicious cookies, etc.
Today's special just happened to be meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, and as my dessert I got to enjoy nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie.~ :)🤎
Good that I'm among those fortunate enough to enjoy their chocolate chip cookies without taking part in any World War
Having sent out fair share of care packages, to our dad on a Navy ship, the crisper cookie won’t go off as fast. However, they can get pulverized. We wrapped my dad’s boxes completely in duct tape as they took a beating. One box was nearly destroyed. It was intact with the contents only because of the solid covering of duct tape. Dad ate the cookies crumbs with a spoon. We also learned that popcorn made the best packing. However we learned that they shouldn’t eat it. Things are sprayed as they are brought on board and at certain parts of the journey. Unless the popcorn is also inside a bag (and contents in that) it’s probably loaded with bug spray and shouldn’t be eaten. We did the same when Dad went to Afghanistan, as a civilian maintenance worker. He had a younger Afghani he was friends with and they liked to play darts, so instead of food, we sent meds and a dart board.
@4:21 A word of advice on teaspoons and tablespoons. Back when I was in high school, "Home Economics" was still offered as an elective. I enrolled during my junior year... reasons withheld. We used cookbooks published during the 50's; in which, they explicitly taught the difference between a "teaspoon" and "teaspoonful". The same applied to the tablespoon counterparts.
During most of the 1900's, women did not use the standardized teaspoon and tablespoon measures. Instead, they used silverware. Your typical dinner spoon was the "teaspoonFUL". The larger serving spoon was the "tablespoonFUL". So when you see those measurements ending in "ful," the recipe expects you to use silverware instead of standardardized measures.
2 teaspoonfuls of cookie dough would normally produce a cookie measuring about 3 to 4 inches diameter, depending on the consistency of the heated dough. Considerably larger than if using a standardized teaspoon.
*Side note: Liquid medications were also commonly dosed by teaspoonfuls and tablespoonfuls. Not to give away my age, but I retain very accurate memories of the flavor of pharmacy-mixed cough syrups dispensed from a silverware teaspoon.
This is what I love about using different sweeteners together, you actually get depth in the sweetness.
I think it’s so fascinating that so much of our modern American food culture is a result of changes from World War II! I would love to see what other American food staples are so popular now from that era, like your pb&j and banana ice cream videos :)
I was just sitting here trying to decide what to make for breakfast. As luck would have it, I have all the ingredients for CC cookies. I think the universe is giving me a sign.
Chocolate chip cookies are 100% the breakfast of champions.
That sounds like a delightful breakfast! I hope you had a delicious cup of coffee to go with them (if you like coffee, that is).
@@christinelamb1167 I did!
@@npflaum Yay! 😁👍
I absolutely love learning all about food history!
I saw your book at Barnes and Noble today, and decided to pick it up. I love it!
Who knew that putting together chocolate morsels and cookie dough together would be the greatest innovation in the history of confectionery baking, Thank you Ruth for making cookie history!
One thing it doesn't tell you when creaming the butter and sugar, my mom taught me to whip it till it looks like whipped cream almost white. It takes a good 5 minutes of whipping. Makes all the difference
..... isn't that what creaming butter and sugar is supposed to be in the first place?
Yes, this is what I always do, and it does make such a difference if you DON'T whip them up long enough. Definitely don't scimp on this step!
@@KomboEzaliTe Yes, but alot of people don't cream them together long enough.
Greetings from across the pond.
The cookie / biscuit thing is confusing I know but for any of you yanks that are interested, over here the chocolate chip cookies you put in the oven are also called cookies here too, so thank you to Ruth for giving us her cookie dream as well.
Whilst the translations might not make it across those waves, the taste non the less did.
Cookies are the ones that go in the oven at home or the bakery, biscuits are tough and brittle and you tend to dunk them in a cup of tea or coffee if your odd.
And the American biscuits that go in the oven are what we'd call a scone, which you tend to put jam on instead of gravy.
And I've heard the scones here in America are ridiculously large, compared to traditional British scones. Of course, everything in America has to be gigantic and over the top! 😂
Yep... as a Swiss person I can attest that you should not trust Nestlé! They are one of the worst corporations in the world.
I'd recommend a supply chain ethics act, they already have complied with German conditions (or at least pretended to do that) but I am sure you could compell them to act better
Imagining an alternate history where Ruth was able to get her hands on Baker's chocolate...I grew up near their original factory and it's condos now, but maybe they would be the well known chocolate company if they had gotten their name attached to a fire cookie recipe!
A lot of old recipes called for Baker’s chocolate specifically. I don’t think it was just the cookies, but I suppose Bakers never expanded into other chocolate forms, and that probably did them in.
Was just thinking the same thing. I drive through Lower Mills all the time (my sister lives near by).
This has easily become one of my favorite channels. I’m currently binging. Been having a really bad bout of depression and I’m finally starting to feel it let up a little. Your witty commentary and delicious goodies has been a huge help, even if your intention was just to spread some tasty history haha.
Just went to Whitman to check out the Toll House plaque. It is indeed between a Wendy’s and Walgreen’s. Thanks so much for the history, Max!!! I used to drive right and not pay any attention at all.
I know the modern Toll House recipe by heart by now! If you really want them to pop off, add some cinnamon and nutmeg, it’s so good! However, I have no idea how you’re getting 50 to 60 cookies out of this!! I get about 2 dozen!
Me too, and haven't gotten any complaints yet..
I use an ice cream scoop and get maybe two dozen, but I haven't ever had any complaints either!
Can’t beat a chocolate chip cookie!!!
CZcams algorithm giving me an actually good recommendation for once. This was an awesome video. I love the setup, the editing, and the way you laid out the information was very engaging. Normally I could care less about history videos, but you do it perfectly. Also the crunch on that first cookie was satisfying asf. Subscribed :)
I use unsalted butter and I always double the amount of vanilla in any recipe that calls for it. I have also gotten pretty good at reducing the recipe to about 1/4 of the original recipe when you just want a few cookies.
I never measure my vanilla. My daughter got scolded by her home ec teacher for using too much in their chocolate chip cookies, but when the class voted for the best ones, her group won. So, win for the vanilla pour!
The D ration was also filled with extra vitamins and minerals you needed, it was a quick small, eat on the go, long term, light weight shelf stable ration. And was deliberately made to not taste very good but passable so millitary personal wouldn't eat all of theirs straight away, and cause health issues.
And many threw it away or trade for other things because it's terrible...
Thank you, Mrs. Ruth!
I love that stove. I have a 1910 Dangler, and a 32 inch stove from the 40"s. They both work and because they don't need electricity they work power or not.
Homemade chocolate chip cookies are by far my favorite cookie. I haven't met a better recipe than the original from the back of the Nestle bag when I was a kid. When I watched you crunch into the first sample in the video, it made my mouth water! I was, however, surprised by the WWII version. Due to allergies in the family, I had managed to create something similar, but didn't know I wasn't original. lol Texture issues are a real thing using liquid sweeteners. For Christmas this year I made a double batch (with non-dairy "butter" and full-on cane sugar) and added peppermint extract for a wintery vibe. I can't wait to eat them tonight and tomorrow! Long live chocolate chip cookies!!!
The bit on the end; as someone in the UK i've never heard anyone refer to chocolate chip cookies as biscuits, i've never seen as sold as "chocolate chip biscuits" or any other type of cookie referred to as such, they are in common usage quite separate terms.
Max explaining the history of the chocolate chip cookie at the original Toll House:
Sir, this is a Wendy's 😂
It's sad she wasn't compensated for her recipe! I'd like to try the shortening version, they sound like my type of cookie❤🎉
I never thought a meme would become real life.
I just made a joke about that. Should have scrolled a little farther down. It fits so perfectly.
Sometimes people don't want to be compensated for their work.
If they think it will do more good becoming "common knowledge" in the public eye than "trade secrets" locked away in some bank vault, who are we to judge? True, fully selfless charity has become a lost art, maybe this was just an example of that.
@@44R0Ndin I think Nestle would have printed the recipe on the back all the same even if they paid her a bit more- would have been nice if she was able to share the recipe AND be fairly compensated for it- maybe, for example, she wouldn't have had to sell the Tollhouse and could have prevented the fire/rebuilt it. I'd certainly rather live in a world where I could visit the kitchen that invented the chocolate chip cookie instead of a Wendys!
If you go into that Wendy’s, there are pictures of Toll House on the walls.
I love Chocolate Chip Cookies! It's really awesome to hear the history/story behind them. I would love to see more history with desserts!
My family's favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe was always, and is Chocolate Chip Oatmeal . very similar to this the original recipe you shared, but with shortening and oatmeal. I have made it with butter instead, both are good. My mom would have been 92 yesterday so, ours was likely a variation of that original recipe. The big difference, we mixed it by hand, as to not over mix it, makes for a more softer ooie gooie cookie with we preferred. The recipe calls for a tablespoon of water which i never add because it make the dough too wet. Always wondered about that, now I realize it must have been the left over idea of dissolving the baking soda. Thanks for sharing
I did the same myself with adding oatmeal to the recipe to give it a unique twist; served them up at a pot-luck company function, too.
One person in human resources was so impressed by it that she attempted baking the same, only to later admit to me that all the batches she made got burnt in the baking.
Yes! Adding oatmeal gives the cookies a nice chewy texture that I love!
I love when Max does a little accent. You get so into it. Makes my heart happy.
Love the ep and the Sorted collab. Just came from there. So much fun. It is even more fun that your collaborations with other channels are channels I already watch. Makes me happy to see you getting around. Thanks for the sweet episode. Dang it, now I want cookies... Oh! Wait! I have all the ingredients!! I know what I'm doing tonight 😻
1:02 I just checked my family recipe book on my mothers side of the family and this part right here without the nuts and chocolate is exactly the same
I worked in the dining hall in college. We had a Hobart stand mixer that looked just like a Kitchenaid but it was about six feet tall and had a clutch and gearshift. All of the attachments were identical, just huge. We were warned never to reach into it while it was running because “it’ll rip your arm off”.
I absolutely LOVE how much food is tied to our history as people
The 2T ice cream scoop does the work for you. (I use that scoop for making meat balls and for measuring the size of my grandmother’s potato patties, she made from left over mashed potatoes, also for salmon patties, and for the family favorite peppermint Filled cookies , from the Cookie Bake Off recipes Grammy gave me in the late forties or early fifties.)
"Not all heroes wear capes, some wear aprons!"
Interesting that the guy wearing an apron would say that.
Oooh! The original crispy choco chip cookie! Ms. Wakefield should have her own honorary US postage stamp! Well researched Max! 🍪🤤🤙