PADT Celebrates the US’s #1 Innovation, the Chocolate Chip Cookie

We try to celebrate things around here at PADT. This year we are learning about different New Year’s Celebrations and have watched movies for May the 4th (be with you). But most of our celebrations focus on food, and this month’s was special because it celebrated one of my favorite foods and what I think maybe the greatest invention to ever come out of this country: The Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Bring a Cookie (or a Dozen) to Work Day

Since August 4th is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, we had employees bring in their favorite recipe, home-cooked. The only rule was that it had to be a cookie (none of those cakelike bars) and have chocolate chips of some kind. Everything else was open.

As you can see, the team showed up with a big variety of options. And they were all great.

Milk and coffee were provided, and almost all of them were gone by the end of the day.

Fun Facts About Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. The world’s largest chocolate chip cookie weighed 38,000 pounds, was 102 feet in diameter, and contained 30,000 eggs.
2. It’s America’s favorite cookie. Fifty-three percent of American adults prefer chocolate chip cookies over peanut butter cookies (16 percent), oatmeal cookies (15 percent), and any other variety.
3. 13.5% of American adults admit to having eaten 20 or more chocolate chip cookies at a time.
4. Chocolate chip cookies are among only four foods acceptable to even the pickiest of eaters. The other three are fried chicken, French fries, and macaroni and cheese.
5. Chocolate chips were invented by Nestle for the recipe. Before that, people broke up chocolate bars.
6. The early chocolate chip cookies were small and very crispy Early chocolate chip cookies were the size of a quarter and eaten in one bite.
7. There are 7 billion chocolate chip cookies eaten in the United States every year, with about 50% of those homemade cookies.
8. Matt Stonie, a competitive eater who weighs a whopping 130 pounds, downed 203 Chips Ahoy! cookies and one gallon of milk in 27 minutes and 33 seconds, according to the website dailymail.com. This light snack weighed 12 pounds and was 12,800 calories!

This History of this Great Invention is about Making Innovation Work:

This greatest of all American inventions was concocted by Ruth Graves Wakefied and Sue Brides in 1938 as a treat for their patrons at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, a town about 25 miles south of Boston. Unlike the popular myth that it was accidentally discovered when they expected the chocolate chunks to melt and make a chocolate cookie, she designed the cookie to contain small chunks of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate bar. In fact, they were first called “Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies” when they published their recipe in their Toll House Cookbook in 1938. As they became more popular, they sold the rights to the recipe and the “Toll House Cookie” name to Nestle in return for a lifetime supply of chocolate.

Learn more on this informative YouTube Video.

Here is a picture of the “Toll House Inn” from back in the day:

My Masterpiece of Cookie Perfection

I captured my cooking on my phone and have included the following to show the true beauty of the Chocolate Chip Cookie experience:

My Recipe for Crunchy and Tasty Chocolate Chip Cookies

In case you were wondering, here is my recipe. Modified from Epicurious. Also, I doubled the recipe because… well, you can’t have enough cookies.

• 3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1½ teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1½ cups light brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla
• 2½ cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 ounces)

Steps:

1. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl.
2. Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric hand mixer at high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Lightly beat 1 egg with a fork in a small bowl and add 1¾ tablespoons of it plus the 2 remaining whole eggs to the butter mixture, beating with the hand mixer until creamy, about 2 minute. Beat in vanilla and cinnamon. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture, one cup at a time, until just blended. Last but not least, stir in chips. It takes some elbow grease.
3. Put the mixture in the fridge and let sit for at least 4 hours. Overnight if possible. This step makes a huge difference in the final cookie crunch because the butter does not melt all the way.
4. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. NOTE: my oven is convection and I set the temp to 350°F
5. Scoop ¼ cup batter for each cookie, arranging mounds 3 inches apart, on 2 baking sheets. I use a cookie scoop that looks like an ice cream scope and it makes half spheres. Do not flatten them like a lot of recipes say you should do.
6. Bake until golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and continue making cookies in the same manner. 13 Minutes was perfect for my convection oven.

Have Fun Sharing

The best part of making cookies is sharing. (eating the dough is a close second). But to have so many different recipes was a wonderful opportunity and a great way to get to know one another. We here at PADT hope that your company celebrates this wonderful event on August 4th next year.

And if you want to see more of the fun things we do here, check out this category on our blog: Fun.