The Untold Truth Of Toll House
When you think about crispy or chewy chocolate chip cookies, the image of the classic bright yellow bag of Toll House chocolate morsels is likely to come to mind. The package comes with perfectly-sized chips and a recipe on every label, so whenever a craving strikes you don't have to go in search of instructions for mixing up a batch. But the recipe wasn't always part of the packaging, according to Chowhound. In fact, chocolate morsels were created when Nestle saw an increase in sales for their semi-sweet chocolate bar and decided to launch a new product: chocolate morsels (via Chowhound).
The Toll House brand has an interesting history and continues to create new and fun products for those who love to bake. The beloved, all-American chocolate chip cookie was invented by a woman named Ruth Graves Wakefield, reports The Toast. And later, Wakefield would work out a deal with Nestle to use her recipe on the packaging as well as inspire the company to make chocolate chips in addition to chocolate bars. Toll House now has an incredible line of delicious products to make baking cookies at home easier than ever. While you may be very familiar with the chips and corresponding recipe, there are a few things you may not know about the company and its products.
Toll House's chocolate morsels come in many flavors
When chocolate chip cookies were created, home bakers had to cut up chocolate bars into pieces because Nestle had not created its fan-favorite chocolate morsels yet. The company was inspired when recipes for the cookies were published in a Boston newspaper and later in other local publications (via What's Cooking America), and Nestle soon noticed that sales of its semi-sweet chocolate bar were soaring (via Chowhound).
Nestle realized there was a need for new products and plenty of profits to be made. The first to launch was a scored semi sweet chocolate bar that made it easier to cut the chocolate bar into pieces (via Delish). Nestle debuted chocolate morsels for the first time in 1939 (via Massachusetts Institute of Technology). According to Toll House, today you can choose from a variety of chip flavors such as white, milk, and dark chocolate, cacao morsels, and non-chocolate-based flavors, including butterscotch, or a combination flavor of milk chocolate and peanut butter. The brand even launched new disco ball-inspired chips with edible glitter in 2021.
Toll House is named after a real place
Although the brand has a variety of products, the name, Toll House, comes from the guest house and restaurant that Wakefield owned with her husband Kenneth beginning in the 1930s. Their inn was located in Whitman, Massachusetts, between Boston and Cape Cod (via The Toast). Although it had the name Toll House Inn, South Shore Living reports their business was never an actual toll house, but rather a place where stagecoaches would arrive and passengers would eat a meal while the driver would pay a toll and tend to the horses (via What's Cooking America).
Wakefield also acted as a chef in the Toll House restaurant, which was part of the inn. In the article from South Shore Living, historian Martha Campbell said, "They opened, first, in the depths of the 1929 depression, and soon became known as the place to get a fine, full-course meal, elegantly served, all for $1. People managed to find the dollars and they began flocking here in droves." A dollar may seem like nothing in today's economy, but in those times dollars weren't lying around.
South Shore Living reports the house was sold by the Wakefields to new owners in 1967, but after burning down in 1984 it was never rebuilt.
Nestle encouraged bakers to make Toll House Cookies for soldiers through advertisements
During World War II, many American soldiers were abroad and their families would send them care packages. Some soldiers received packages of Toll House cookies and many would share them with their fellow comrades (via The Toast). As word got around about these delicious treats, and likely the taste of home they provided, more soldiers began to ask their own families for these special cookies to be sent in the mail, explains Chowhound. As Wakefield's cookie was becoming more well-known, soldiers began to request the cookies more frequently. In fact, Wakefield herself even had people in different parts of the world writing her letters and asking for the recipe (via Chowhound).
But this didn't happen by chance. According to Toll House, they used this as a marketing strategy to encourage people to bake and send cookies to soldiers. Toll House ran an advertisement campaign during the war motivating citizens to bake up batches of cookies to send to soldiers. One ad Chowhound shared a picture of featured a close-up illustration of a soldier with a note that stated: "Make up a batch of those golden-brown, crunchy Toll House Cookies and send it to that soldier boy of yours. He always did go for those crisp brown cookies containing whole pieces of Nestle Semi-Sweet chocolate." It seems Nestle will do whatever it takes to turn a profit — even in not-so-great circumstances.
You can buy premade cookie dough
Craving chocolate chip cookies but don't have all the ingredients in your pantry? Or maybe you're not in the mood for mixing and measuring and all the extra clean up involved? Nestle has you covered with its premade cookie dough. They're perfect when you're wanting just-baked cookies right out of the oven without any additional effort.
According to Toll House's website, you can buy a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and other versions of premade dough in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. If you prefer to stock up, it also offers frozen dough so you always have plenty available whenever the craving strikes. The brand didn't just stop at regular chocolate chip cookies though. It created other chocolate chip cookie favorites, too, such as white chocolate chip macadamia nut, peanut butter chip, and dark chocolate chip cookies (via Toll House). And if you prefer a different flavor variety entirely, you can peruse packages of peanut butter and sugar cookies as well that are ready to be plopped onto a baking pan.
Toll House has recently gone a step beyond chocolate chips and cookie dough
If you can't get enough chocolate chip cookies or cookie dough flavor, you're in luck. Yahoo! Life reported that Toll House recently launched a brand new product that has your favorite cookie flavor, but isn't a cookie itself. That's right, it's chocolate chip cookie-inspired syrup that comes in a large, signature Toll House yellow bottle. Pouring it over a bowl of ice cream seems to be the brand's suggested use — the perfect blend would be drizzling this over cookie dough ice cream — but there are many ways you can get creative.
If you're a fan of this flavor, we're sure you can find plenty of ways to incorporate this new syrup into different foods and drinks, such as your morning coffee, breakfast yogurt, or even your favorite fruit. If it helps you eat more fruit, then that counts, right? Well, as long as there's more fruit than the sugary syrup.