MAIN INGREDIENTS
Usually accompanied by a glass of milk or a cup of hot tea or coffee, chocolate chip cookies are well balanced between salty and sweet in flavor, tenderly chewy in texture, and filled with small melting chocolate pyramids, bringing a generation of Americans back to their childhood.
The origin story of these sweet treats is incredibly interesting, almost as the cookies themselves. The Toll House Inn was a popular bed-and-breakfast in Whitman, Massachusetts, bought by Ruth Graves Wakefield and her husband in 1930. Ruth's cooking was so good that the inn gained an excellent reputation in a short span of time.
MOST ICONIC Chocolate chip cookie
Although the name suggests otherwise, Boston cream pie is not a pie, but a cake consisting of two layers of sponge cake which are filled with a rich vanilla custard, while the whole thing is finished with a chocolate glaze, or in some cases, with sprinkled confectioners' sugar.
It was named a pie because the first versions were baked in pie tins, which were more common than cake pans in the mid-19th century. The inventor of the Boston cream pie is a French chef named Sanzian, who worked in the Parker House, a hotel that claims to have served the dessert since its opening in 1856.
MOST ICONIC Boston Cream Pie
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Marshmallow cream is an original American confectionery. It consists of whipped egg whites combined with corn syrup, sugar, and a thickening agent. The result is a fluffy, sweet, spreadable cream used in many recipes and delicious combinations.
Although marshmallow cream can be prepared at home, it is usually factory-produced and bought in jars. The homemade variety was first mentioned in a recipe dating back to 1896, but marshmallow cream as a product first started to be sold at the beginning of the 20th century.
It was invented by a local in Somerville Massachusetts, who later sold his recipe which is still produced by only three companies in the United States: Durkee-Mower with their Marshmallow Fluff, Kraft, and Solo Foods.
Joe froggers are American egg-free cookies made with a combination of molasses, dark rum, flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, sugar, and butter. The dough is refrigerated (ideally overnight), and it is then rolled and cut into circular shapes.
Before baking, the cookies are sprinkled with sugar. Once baked, the cookies become chewy in texture and keep for a long time, which is the reason why sailors prized them during long sea voyages. Joe froggers were served by freeman Joe Brown at his tavern in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
MOST ICONIC Joe Froggers
TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. For the “Top 4 Massachusettsan Desserts” list until March 15, 2025, 1,024 ratings were recorded, of which 922 were recognized by the system as legitimate. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.