Ruth Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts invented the chocolate chip cookie by accident. Wakefield was making a batch of chocolate butter drop cookies but had run out of baking chocolate. She decided to chop up a bar of Nestlé chocolate instead, but the chocolate did not melt and spread through the dough. Instead, it stayed in place creating pockets of melted chocolate.

She called it the Chocolate Crunch Cookie and published her recipe in 1938 as an ice cream garnish. A year later she officially gave Nestlé permission to use her recipe, as well as the Toll House name. While the concept has evolved over the years, the recipe for the iconic treat has largely remained the same. In the 1950s, baking companies began to offer refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough, a treat on its own, which Ben & Jerry’s later added to ice cream.

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