Cookies

In Canada, a cookie is described as a thin, sweet, usually small cake. By definition, a cookie can be any of a variety of hand-held, flour-based sweet cakes, either crisp or soft. Cookies are most commonly baked until crisp or just long enough that they remain soft, but some kinds of cookies are not baked at all. Cookies are made in a wide variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars, spices, chocolate, butter, peanut butter, nuts or dried fruits. The softness of the cookie may depend on how long it is baked.

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History of Cookies

The earliest cookie-style cakes are thought to date back to 7^th century Persia A.D., one of the first countries to cultivate sugar and make luxurious cakes and pastries in large and small versions. Cookie-like hard wafers have existed for as long as baking is documented, in part because they deal with travel very well, but they were usually not sweet enough to be considered cookies, by modern standards. According to historians, sugar originated either in the lowlands of Bengal or elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Sugar spread to Persia and then to the Eastern Mediterranean. With the Muslim invasion of Spain, then the Crusades and the developing spice trade, the cooking techniques and ingredients of Arabia spread into Northern Europe.

As people started to explore the globe, biscuits (cookies) became the ideal traveling food, because they stayed fresh for long periods of time, had a long storage life and was perfect for traveling. For centuries, a ship's biscuit, an iron-like cracker, was aboard any ship that left port because it could last for months (even years under the right conditions).

During the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, baking was a carefully controlled profession, managed through a series of Guilds or professional associations. To become a baker, people had to complete years of an apprenticeship - working through the ranks of apprentice, journeyman, and finally master baker. By having guilds, authorities could easily regulate the amount and quality of goods baked. As technology improved during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, so did the ability of bakers to make a wide range of sweet and savory biscuits for commercial consumption. Despite more varieties becoming available, the essential ingredients of biscuits didn't change. These ingredients are 'soft' wheat flour, which contains less protein than the flour used to bake bread, sugar, and fats, such as butter and oil.

The English, Scotch, and Dutch immigrants originally brought the first cookies to the United States. Our simple butter cookies strongly resemble the English teacakes and the Scotch shortbread. The Southern colonial housewife of America took great pride in her cookies, almost always called simply tea cakes. These were often flavored with nothing more than the finest butter, sometimes with the addition of a few drops of rose water.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of cookie recipes in the United States and Canada. No one book could hold the recipes for all the various types of cookies. The geographic development of the United States was reflected in popular cookie recipes. The railroad's expansion in the early 1800s gave cooks access to coconuts from the South. Later in the century, oranges from the West were included in many recipes. Around the turn of the century, the Kellogg brothers in Michigan invented cornflakes and cookies were made with cereal products. In the 1930s, with the advent of electric refrigerators, icebox cookies reached new heights of popularity. Today there are hundreds upon hundreds of cookie recipes in the United States and Canada. No one book could hold the recipes for all of the various types of cookies.

Classification of Cookies

Drop cookies are made from a relatively soft dough that is dropped by spoonfuls onto the baking sheet. During baking, the mounds of dough spread and flatten.
Refrigerator cookies are made from a stiff dough that is refrigerated to become even stiffer. The dough is typically shaped into cylinders which are sliced into round cookies before baking.
Molded cookies are also made from a stiffer dough that is molded into balls or cookie shapes by hand before baking.
Rolled cookies are made from a stiffer dough that is rolled out and cut into shapes with a coo kie cutter.
Pressed cookies are made from a soft dough that is extruded from a cookie press into various decorative shapes before baking.
Bar cookies consist of batter, cheese, or other ingredients that are poured or pressed into a pan (sometimes in multiple layers), and cut into cookie-sized pieces after baking.
Sandwich cookies are rolled or pressed cookies that are assembled as a sandwich with a sweet filling.
Fried cookies including traditional cookies such as the krusczyki, rosettes and fattigmann as well as a newer American trend of deep-frying ordinary drop cookie dough.