Nestle Sweet Treats

As regular as clockwork, come November and the grocery stores set up their special displays where all the ingredients they hope you'll buy for your holiday baking are made more accessible. You know the displays I'm speaking of. They're in the dairy aisle or up front near the cash registers, maybe over in produce.

Every year these displays are always loaded with packages of Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels along with nuts and marshmallow creme and disposable tinfoil baking pans. The sales of semi-sweet morsels must skyrocket this time of year.

Sweet Treats - Recipes from Nestle (not dated, 20 pages) tells a bit about the history and origin of these very familiar morsels and the cookie that became famous.

The Tale of the Toll House Cookie

"Approximately forty years ago Mrs. Wakefield, the proprietress of a country inn, The Toll House Inn, at Whitman, Massachusetts was the discoverer of the now famous Toll House cookie. Mrs. Wakefield had taken the Butter Drop-Do, an American cookie, probably the earliest ancestor of the Toll House cookie and added a new ingredient. The new ingredient was the semi-sweet chocolate bar. Mrs. Wakefield cut the bar into small pieces dropping them into the batter expecting them to melt. To her surprise, they stayed deliciously firm. And so a new technique in chocolate cookery was born.

The discovery of the Toll House cookies took New England by storm. The Nestle Company Inc., who made the semi-sweet chocolate bar started producing a chocolate bar scored for easy division into tiny sections and accompanied by a special chocolate chopper. Later Nestle made the chocolate into separate little pieces, ready to slip right out of the package into the cookie dough and called them semi-sweet real chocolate morsels.

Today, as every homemaker knows, the semi-sweet real chocolate morsels that were created expressly for the authentic Toll House cookies now make hundreds of quick and easy semi-sweet chocolate treats. Truly, the Tale of the Toll House cookie is not only legendary, but one of the many amazing milestones in the American food industry."

Although this recipe book is not dated, it practically screams 1970s. The predominant color throughout the book--on the cover, the pages, the illustrations--is brown or close shades thereof. Country kitchen antiques, also very popular in the 70s, are used as props, intermingled with the cookies, bars, cakes, pies and ice cream.

The cookie jar featured on the cover and in one of the interior illustrations cans still be found and was most likely offered as an advertising premium by Nestle.


I though these cookies would look nice on a holiday cookie tray. They're shown in the image directly following the recipe.

DIPPED SHORTBREAD

2 cups unsifted flour
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
1 measuring teaspoon vanilla extract
1 6-oz. pkg. (1 cup) Nestle Semi-Sweet Real Chocolate Morsels or 1 6-oz. pkg. (1 cup) Nestle Butterscotch Morsels
1 measuring tablespoon shortening
1/2 cup finely chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, combine flour, butter, confectioners' sugar and vanilla extract; mix until thoroughly blended. Shape into 2" logs, using a measuring teaspoonful dough for each. Place on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake at: 350°F. Time: 10-12 minutes

Cool completely. Melt over hot (not boiling) water, Nestle Semi-Sweet Real Chocolate Morsels or Nestle Butterscotch Morsels and shortening; remove from heat. Dip one end of each cookie into melted morsels. Roll in nuts. Chill in refrigerator until firm (about 1 hour).

Makes 6 dozen 2" logs.


I'm always partial to recipes with pecans. Pecans make everything taste better! These bars are shown in the bottom center of the image immediately following the recipe.

MILK CHOCOLATE PECAN BARS

Cookie Base:
1 cup unsifted flour
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 measuring teaspoon baking soda
1/4 measuring teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, softened

Topping:
1 11-1/2 oz. pkg. (2 cups) Nestle Milk Chocolate Morsels
2 eggs
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 measuring teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 measuring teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans, divided

Cookie Base: Preheat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking soda and salt; mix well. Cut in butter with pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Press evenly into greased 13"x9"x2" baking pan.

Bake at 350°F. Time: 10 minutes

Pour topping over cookie base; sprinkle with 1/2 cup pecans.

Bake at: 350°F. Time: 20 minutes

Cool; cut into 2" x 1" bars.

Topping: Melt over hot (not boiling) water, Nestle Milk Chocolate Morsels; remove from heat. In small bowl, combine eggs, brown sugar, vanilla extrct and salt; beat 2 minutes at high speed on electric mixer. Add melted chocolate; mix well. Stir in 1/2 cup pecans.

Makes 4 dozen 2" x 1" bars.


I had a stovetop cast iron waffle maker once that looked similar to the one in this photo. That sucker was heavy.


More kitchen stuff and the infamous Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies shown here: