Toll House Cookies

Mise en place for Toll House Cookies.

This is on the list of 75 Things Every New Englander Should Do from Yankee Magazine.  We took a break today from our busy summer days.  Staying home this morning was a good idea - and tasty, too!  Here is a little information about the Toll House Inn:

Is it just me or could Amanda King live here?

The Toll House Inn
The Toll House for whom the cookies are named was built in 1709 on the old Boston to New Bedford road, now Route 18. Travellers paid tolls at the house for the use of the road, but could also rest there and eat a meal while their horses were changed.

In August, 1930, Kenneth and Ruth Graves Wakefield purchased the property, then the Smith house, and opened a lodge and restaurant - the Toll House Inn. Ruth was a 1924 graduate of the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts. After graduation she had worked as a dietician and food lecturer, and was in charge of the Inn's kitchen. Early in the restaurant's history Ruth wanted to make chocolate cookies but was out of baker's chocolate. She substituted broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate made by Andrew Nestlé. Instead of melting into the dough as intended the morsels remained clumps of melted chocolate, and the toll house cookie, also known as the chocolate chip cookie, was born. Ruth's recipe was later published and became quite popular in New England. She licensed the recipe to chocolate maker Nestlé, who, in 1939, began marketing Toll House Morsels designed for her cookie recipe.

Over the years the Wakefield's establishment grew into a major restaurant, well-known to South Shore residents. Kenneth and Ruth sold the Inn in 1966, and it became a nightclub. A second sale in 1970 returned it to use as a restaurant. The building burned down on New Years Eve in 1984.

Ruth Graves Wakefield passed away in 1977.

Lucy and Annie posing with the cookie dough.  Lucy was dressed as Annie's princess.

Lucy eating the fruit of her labor.

Don't say "cheese" but "yummmm!!!"