In 1987, there was a silly little chain letter recipe going around that many thought included the "secret formula" for Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies. Disappointed were those folks who made the cookies and found that they tasted nothing like the real deal. Of course, this wasn't the actual recipe for the world famous cookies at all; more likely just some bored soul's idea of a pointless prank.
To this day no one knows for sure what motives were behind the chain letter -- perhaps the author merely wanted to see how far it would spread. If that was the case, he or she must have been quite pleased. Because for nearly a decade after the letter first emerged in its many forms as multi-generational photocopies, it was distributed across the country steadily to people who fell for the story and then passed it on to their friends and relatives. And so on, and so on, and so on...
The story printed at the top of the recipe went something like this: A woman had called the Mrs. Fields Company to request the recipe for Debbie Fields' famous chocolate chip cookies. The company said they would sell the recipe to the woman for $2.50. The woman said that would be fine and put the charge on her credit card, but when she received her bill, she found she had been charged $250 instead. This infuriated her, goes the story, so she made copies of the recipe and sent it out to anyone she knew encouraging them to do likewise.
Indeed this seemingly harmless chain letter recipe spread like a bad winter flu. The recipe became so popular that the Mrs. Fields company was beginning to feel the impact. The company's founder, Debbi Fields, says that people were writing anonymous letters to her saying "how could you treat this poor woman like that?" Others would taste cookies they had made from the recipe thinking they were representative of a Mrs. Fields product, when they were a mediocre chocolate cookie at best. The problem got so bad that the company eventually had to display signs in its 450 outlets, discharging the bogus claims.
Although, at the time, Debbi Fields took the matter very seriously, today she laughs about it. "You have to," She says.
When I talked to her recently (she picked up her own phone!), I asked about the damage it did to her business. She said, "You can never measure it in dollars. More than anything it hurt my credibility."
She says she still talks to people who say that they've heard the company used to sell her recipe. And even today, the chain letter is still going around in one form or another.
"The one thing that has changed is that now it's somebody else's recipe," says Fields. And she's right. Now the most popular form of the recipe is still the same as the recipe that circulated in the late 80's, except the story has changed to make the recipe one for chocolate chip cookies that you can buy at Neiman Marcus or some other department store. Click here for the real Neiman Marcus recipe.
So what's wrong with the cookies you make from the chain letter recipe anyway? Quite a bit actually if you're comparing them to those made by Mrs. Fields. For one thing the recipe calls for a large amount of oatmeal, an ingredient which does not show up anywhere on the ingredients list you can request at a Mrs. Fields store. Although the recipe calls for the oatmeal to be blended into a fine powder resembling flour, oatmeal is only used in the Mrs. Fields oatmeal cookies, not in the chocolate chip variety. Whoever made the recipe didn't bother to find this out.
Also, the chain letter recipe doesn't use nearly enough vanilla or chocolate chips. One marketing trick Mrs. Fields uses is to pipe the aroma of her cookies out of vents into the shopping malls where many of her stores are located. The aroma is intoxicating (tell me about it) with a strong vanilla scent accentuated by the chocolate and butter. If you want cookies that taste like Mrs. Fields you have to use lots of vanilla and chocolate chips -- more than you would use in the popular toll house recipe, and much more than in the chain letter (If neighbors coincidentally start dropping by as you're baking, you've hit it on the nose).
You would also have to add more salt to the recipe to bring out these flavors, and the cooking temperature is way off in the chain letter. Mrs. Fields cookies are cooked in convection ovens for uniform heating at the low temperature of 350 degrees. The chain letter says 375 degrees, but it's only for 6 minutes. That just isn't enough time unless you want to eat hot, drippy cookie goo. At 350 degrees you'll have to bake the cookies for at least 9-10 minutes to get them looking and tasting like the real thing. The cookies will seem gooey at first, but after cooling will firm up nicely and should stay chewy (not crispy) even a couple days after they've been baked.
And then there are some clone recipes that add a half teaspoon to a teaspoon of watered-down milk to the mix, but that is such a small quantity that it really doesn't make a big difference.
Time to judge for yourself. I've included the chain letter recipe below and a link to the Top Secret Recipes version of Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies. Keep in mind as you compare the ingredients in these recipes that the chain letter version makes more than three times the number of cookies as the Top Secret Recipes version. When you consider that, you'll see just how much more vanilla and chocolate chips the Top Secret Recipes version contains.
Now if you ever get one of these chain letters in the mail, consider yourself very lucky...that you found paper for the bottom of the birdcage.
Chain Letter
version of
Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is the recipe from that chain letter that has been floating around for years now. It may claim to be for duplicating cookies from Mrs. Fields, Neiman Marcus or somewhere else by now, but the recipe is usually the same.
Cream Together:
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups brown sugar
Add:
4 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla
Mix together:
4 cups flour
5 cups oatmeal (measure into electric blender and grind to powder)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
Mix together all ingredients and add 24 ounces of chocolate chips and 3 cups of chopped nuts (any kind). Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet. Make golf ball sized cookies, 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees for 6 minutes. Bake slightly longer if necessary--cookies should be soft. |
