Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes

Note: This edition of Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes has been updated to include Metric equivalents.


Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies… the most popular cookie recipe of all time, and this is the cookbook where it all started. You'll find the recipe as it originally appeared (in those days the cookies were made smaller and crunchier than nowadays).


From Ruth's Introduction:


In August of 1930, Mr. Wakefield and I bought a lovely old Cape Cod house, built in 1709 on the outskirts of Whitman, Massachusetts. At one time it was used as a toll house, where passengers ate, changed horses, and paid toll. It was here that we started our inn, calling it The Toll House.


I had previously been a dietitian and food lecturer and, we used in starting our business, this collection of recipes which I had gathered since I was first interested in cooking. Many were family dishes, several recipes I had developed, and many were brought to me by friends and pupils of the cooking lectures.


Feeling that there was an opportunity in this vicinity for an eating place serving the finest obtainable foods, cooked carefully and served as nicely as one would like in one’s home, with a restful atmosphere, we started in business, having one male assistant and a waitress. The little house had room for seven tables; in three years’ time it had grown to take care of sixty-four tables and we now serve one thousand to over two thousand guests a day who are taken care of by an organization of over one hundred people. Our original male assistant as chef and the first waitress are still with us.


During the first year of our business I published my collection of recipes in book form, at the request of friends, and in each succeeding edition have added recipes and revised the original printing. All the dishes have been used with great success at the Toll House and during the past five years several recipes have been given me at other inns, all over the world, during our travels looking for new ideas.


I still believe in small quantity cookery as giving the best results in flavor, consistency and general quality, especially in baking, and I know there are no substitutes for butter, cream, eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables in preparing a fine meal.