NATIONAL DAYFOOD & DRINK

National Chocolate Chip Day

National Chocolate Chip Day on May 15 celebrates the tiny kernel of chocolate that revolutionized American baking — invented at the Toll House Inn in 1937, a perfect industrial-age accident that became the chocolate chip cookie, the universal American dessert. Ruth Wakefield's original recipe sold to Nestlé for one dollar and a lifetime supply of chocolate chips. A cultural icon was born.

MAY15

Saturday, May 15Every year on May 15

days to go

Vibe: Classic & Comforting
Also on May 15: Endangered Species Day · Nylon Stocking Day · Pizza Party Day
Hashtag: #NationalChocolateChipDay

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Ways to celebrate

Bake, share, enjoy:

🍪 Bake the Toll House recipe. The original on the Nestlé bag. Still the gold standard. Takes 20 minutes start to finish.
🍫 Try the Jacques Torres 'perfect' recipe. New York Times, 2008. Rested dough for 24 hours; feta salt on top. Widely considered the world's best chocolate chip cookie.
🎂 Chocolate chip pancakes. Weekend breakfast classic. Chocolate chips in pancake batter = kids happy.
🍨 Chocolate chip ice cream. Store-bought is fine; homemade is excellent. Ben & Jerry's has many chocolate-chip variations.
📖 Gift the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook. Modern crispy-cookie bible. A genuine counterpoint to the chewy-cookie orthodoxy.

Make it your kind of celebration

Family
Chocolate chip cookie baking afternoon. Kids measure, adults mix and bake. Results consumed warm with milk. Family tradition material.
Kids
Kids love chocolate chip pancakes more than chocolate chip cookies. Add to breakfast recipe for instant hero status.
Couples
Couples cookie-baking. Two hands better than one. Chocolate chip cookies + wine is a surprisingly great combination.
Office
Chocolate chip cookies for the office. Always popular. A simple batch from scratch is vastly better than store-bought.
School
Cookie baking is a classic school fundraiser. Toll House recipe is the baseline.
Community
Bake sales often feature chocolate chip. A reliable fundraiser staple.
Just me
One cookie with coffee. The perfect single-serving dessert. Buy one from a bakery if you don't want to bake.

Plan ahead

National Chocolate Chip Day is observed on May 15 every year. Here is where it lands for the next ten years, handy for planners, marketers and party people.

2026Fri, May 15this year

2027Sat, May 15

2028Mon, May 15

2029Tue, May 15

2030Wed, May 15

2031Thu, May 15

2032Sat, May 15

2033Sun, May 15

2034Mon, May 15

2035Tue, May 15

2036Thu, May 15

Add to my calendar (repeats yearly)

Fast facts

1937,Ruth Wakefield

Toll House Inn, Whitman, MA

The story

Ruth Graves Wakefield and her husband Kenneth opened the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts in 1930, a restaurant in a converted 1709 toll house. Ruth was the cook; the restaurant served simple New England fare. One day in 1937, experimenting with a butter-drop-do cookie recipe, Ruth added broken-up pieces of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate to the dough. She expected the chocolate to melt and spread through the cookie, but the pieces held their shape, creating pockets of chocolate in buttery cookie. The first chocolate chip cookie was born by culinary accident.

Read the full story

The Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie (Ruth's original name) became hugely popular at the Inn. Ruth published the recipe in her cookbook, 'Toll House Tried and True Recipes' (1938). Nestlé noticed sales of its Yellow Label Semi-Sweet Chocolate bar surging in the Toll House area; Nestlé sales rep Andrew Nestlé visited the restaurant in 1939 and offered to buy the recipe. Wakefield sold the recipe for $1 and a lifetime supply of Nestlé chocolate. Nestlé began printing the recipe on its chocolate bar wrappers.

In 1939, Nestlé began scoring their semi-sweet chocolate bars to make breaking easier. In 1941, Nestlé introduced the 'Nestlé Toll House Morsel', pre-shaped chocolate chips specifically designed for the cookie. The new chocolate chip was a perfectly sized industrial product, and it turned the Toll House Cookie into America's cookie. The original recipe is still printed on every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips today.

The chocolate chip cookie has evolved into hundreds of variations, chewy vs. crispy, thick vs. thin, with nuts vs. without, dark chocolate vs. milk, with sea salt vs. without. The 'Jacques Torres New York Times recipe' (2008), which rests the dough 24+ hours, is widely considered the world's best version. Tollhouse remains the baseline. The chocolate chip cookie is a genuine American cultural export: it's the universal school lunchbox cookie, the classic hostess gift, the iconic American baked good. National Chocolate Chip Day on May 15 honors all of it.

Each with its own devoted fans:

How different American cities bake them:

Did you know?

Ruth Wakefield's Toll House story has myths.

The popular 'she ran out of nuts and substituted chocolate' story is not accurate. Wakefield intentionally added chopped chocolate to create a new cookie. The substitution myth likely originated in 1940s marketing.

The cookie turned Nestlé into a baking empire.

Before the chocolate chip cookie, Nestlé was a Swiss chocolate company best known for Nestlé Crunch bars. The Toll House Morsel transformed Nestlé into America's baking-industry leader and a household name.

Americans eat 2 billion chocolate chip cookies annually.

Chocolate chip is America's most-eaten cookie by a wide margin. Estimates are 35-40% of all American cookies sold are chocolate chip. The runner-up is sugar cookies at around 15%.

The cookie is Connecticut's state cookie.

In 2003, Connecticut officially declared the chocolate chip cookie its state cookie. Massachusetts disputes the honor as the cookie's true birthplace. A genuine state-rivalry in baking.