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In England and Australia, cookies are called biscuits. |
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The term “Cookie” comes from the Dutch word koekje. |
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The first cookies in the United States were brought by English, Scotch and Dutch immigrants. |
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In Europe, during the 17th and 18th centuries, the baking profession was regulated through Guilds and professional associations. One had to work through the ranks to be recognized as a master baker. |
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The Anzac biscuit, a popular Australian cookie made of primarily flour and water, originated during the First World War, and stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Families in Australia and New Zealand would send them to ANZAC troops serving overseas because of their long shelf-life (it took at least 2 months by sea to reach them). |
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Biscotti means “twice cooked”. It is believed that the first Italian biscotti were baked in an Italian city called Prato, in the 13th century. |
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Most believe that the first brownie was an accident—someone forgot to add the baking powder in a chocolate cake, resulting in a dense, flat chocolate treat. |
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The first known published brownie recipe appeared in a 1897 edition of the Sears Roebuck catalog. |
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The first chocolate chip cookie was created by Ruth Graves Wakefield of Massachusetts in 1937. Running low on baker’s chocolate, she decided to break up a semi-sweet chocolate bar into her cookie dough. Thinking that the chocolate would melt, creating a pure, chocolate cookie, she was surprised to discover that the pieces remained intact---and so began the long history of the chocolate chip cookie. |
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In Sommerset, Massachusetts, in 1997, a third grade class proposed that the chocolate chip cookie become the official cookie of the Commonwealth... on July 9, 1997, it was so designated. |
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Fortune cookies are not an authentic Chinese dessert! In the 1990s the first fortune cookies were sold in China, advertised as “Genuine American Fortune Cookies”. |
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The macaroon, a cookie usually made of ground almonds or coconut, originated in an Italian monastery in 1792. |
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Peanut butter was not listed as a possible ingredient in cookie recipes until the early 1930s. |
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Ever wonder where the name Snickerdoodle came from? In early American cookbooks, New England cooks had the habit of assigning unusual names to their cookies—simply because they were fun to say. Other entertaining names included: Jumbles, Plunkets, Jolly Boys, Tangle Breeches and Kinkawoodles. |
