Using these two cookie recipes from our 42nd and 43rd First Ladies, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, we created a peanut butter, toasted coconut, semi- sweet chocolate cookie sandwich in Honor of all Moms on Mother's Day. We used white flour and half oats, half toasted coconut and followed the Toll House Cookie Recipe on the back of their chocolate chip bag. Our recipe was made with Egg Beaters and only one butter balance stick, white sugar, creamy peanut butter to replace half the butter fat and semi-sweet chocolate chips. We formed the dough into small flat pattie shapes and let them rise in the oven. Once thorougly cooled we served them stacked like a sandwich with ice cream centers and carmel sauce topped with toasted coconut. These soft cookies melt in your mouth.

Laura Bush's Cowboy Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter (at room temperature)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups sweetened flake coconut
2 cups chopped pecans (8 ounce)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in bowl.
In 8-quart bowl, beat butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy, 1 minute. Gradually beat in sugars; beat to combine, 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Beat in vanilla extract.
Stir in flour mixture until just combined. Add chocolate chips, oats, coconut and pecans.
For each cookie, drop 1/4 cup dough onto ungreased baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart. Bake for 17 to 19 minutes, until edges are lightly browned; rotate sheets halfway through.
Remove cookies from rack to cool.
Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
NOTE: For 6 dozen small cookies, use 2 tablespoons dough for each. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 to 18 minutes.

Hillary Clinton's Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup solid vegetable shortening
1 cup light brown sugar; firmly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
12 oz bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and grease baking sheets. Combine flour,
salt, and baking soda in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, beat together the shortening, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla until creamy. Add the eggs and beat until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the flour mixture and rolled oats. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop batter by well-rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool cookies on sheets on a wire rack for two minutes. Remove cookies to wire rack to cool completely.

http://community.tasteofhome.com/forums/t/82337.aspx

Today the chocolate chip cookie remains a favorite choice among cookie connoisseurs. The term "toll house" has become a part of the American language.

1937 - The first chocolate chip cookies was invented in 1937 by Ruth Graves Wakefield (1905-1977), of Whitman, Massachusetts, who ran the Toll House Restaurant. The Toll House Restaurant site was once a real toll house built in 1709, where stage coach passengers ate a meal while horses were changed and a toll was taken for use of the highway between Boston and New Bedford , a prosperous whaling town. The Wakefields sold the restaurant in 1966. It burned down on New Year's Eve in 1984.

One of Ruth's favorite recipes was an old recipe for "Butter Drop Do" cookies that dated back to colonial times. The recipe called for the use of baker's chocolate. One day Ruth found herself without a needed ingredient. Having a bar of semisweet chocolate on hand, she chopped it into pieces and stirred the chunks of chocolate into the cookie dough. She assumed that the chocolate would melt and spread throughout each cookie. Instead the chocolate bits held their shape and created a sensation. She called her new creation the Toll House Crunch Cookies. The Toll House Crunch Cookies became very popular with guests at the inn, and soon her recipe was published in a Boston newspaper, as well as other papers in the New England area. Word of the cookie spread and it became popular.

1939 - This cookie became known nationally when Betty Crocker used it in her radio series on "Famous Foods From Famous Eating Places." Ruth approached the Nestle company and together, they reached an agreement that allowed Nestle to print what would become the Toll House Cookie recipe on the wrapper of the Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar. The company developed a scored semisweet chocolate bar with a small cutting implement so that making the chocolate chunks would be easier. According to the story, part of this agreement included supplying Ruth with all of the chocolate she could use to make her delicious cookies for the rest of her life.

1940s - Ruth sold all legal rights to the use of the Toll House trademark to Nestle. On August 25, 1983, the Nestle Company lost its exclusive right to the trademark in federal court. Toll house is now a descriptive term for a cookie.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/CookieHistory.htm