National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day Date in the current year: August 4, 2023

A chocolate chip cookie is just what its name suggests: a cookie that features chocolate chips or simply tiny pieces of chocolate as its distinguishing ingredient. Generally, the main ingredients of chocolate chip cookies are sugar, flour, eggs, butter or shortening, salt, baking soda or another leavening agent, vanilla extract, and chocolate morsels. Some recipes also include milk, chopped nuts, cocoa, peanut butter, and other ingredients.

Interestingly, chocolate chip cookies predate chocolate chips: the cookies were invented circa 1938, and chocolate chips became commercially available in 1941. The person credited with the invention of chocolate chip cookies is American chef Ruth Graves Wakefield. She and her husband owned and ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. Ruth cooked all the food served at the inn, and some of her desserts were a hit among locals and guests. One day, she was experimenting with her drop cookie recipe and decided to add some chopped semi-sweet chocolate to the batter.

In 1938, Ruth published the second edition of her cookbook Toll House Tried and True Recipes that included Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies made with Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate, which soon became a hit. Nestlé reached out to Ruth, and they made a deal: the company got the permission to print the recipe on the cover of their semi-sweet chocolate bars in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. Three years later, Nestlé started selling chocolate chips.

At first, chocolate chip cookies were relatively unknown outside of Massachusetts. The situation changed during World War II, when soldiers from Massachusetts stationed overseas would receive chocolate chip cookies in their care packages. They shared the cookies with soldiers from other states, who wrote back home asking their families to send them some Toll House Cookies. Today, chocolate cookies are one of the most popular commercially available cookies in the United States, as well as one of the most universally beloved homemade desserts.

The origins of National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day are unclear, but it makes sense that there is a holiday celebrating one of America’s favorite desserts. You can join the celebration by baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies (go with your favorite recipe or try a new one – whatever you feel like doing), buy your favorite brand of chocolate cheep cookies at a grocery store, check out your local bakeries to find out which one sells the best chocolate cheep cookies, organize a bake-off or a bake sale to benefit a local charity, and spread the word about the holiday on social media with the hashtags #NationalChocolateChipCookieDay and #ChocolateChipCookieDay.

National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day should not be confused with National Chocolate Chip Day. The latter holiday falls on May 15 and is dedicated not just to chocolate chip cookies, but to all foods containing them be it brownies, cakes, granola bars, ice cream, muffins, pancakes, pies, trail mix, or waffles.