Chocolate chips were invented after chocolate chip cookies.
 
 
 
 

Chocolate chip cookies are going on 100 years old. The classic treat was popularized in the 1930s by Massachusetts chef Ruth Wakefield, who served the sweet snack as an accompaniment to ice cream at her popular restaurant, the Toll House Inn. Originally called a “Toll House cookie” or “chocolate crunch cookie,” her creation became a sensation. After she published the recipe in a late-1930s edition of her cookbook Ruth Wakefield’s Tried and True Recipes, it was syndicated in newspapers and earned her a spot on a popular Betty Crocker radio program.
 

Chocolate chips used to be molasses candy.
 

Chocolate chips as we know them today were created by Nestle in 1940, but before that, the term had a different meaning. Confections known as chocolate chips were a mainstay of candy shops in the late 19th century and early 20th century, but these chocolate chips were chocolate-covered molasses treats — they were called “chips” for their thin, oblong shape. A 1905 advertisement in The Theatre magazine described the treat as “pure honey-molasses taffy, spun out to finest, airiest crisp, then coated with rich, pure chocolate.”