Bake Cookies Day occurs in the middle of the holiday season, and is a great excuse to bake some delicious cookies to help you get through the cold, winter days!
Cookies arrived in America in the 17th century, although the word arrived much later with the Dutch in its original form of “koekje”, meaning “little cake”. This was soon shortened to “cooky” or “cookie”, although cookies themselves seem to date back as far as 7th century Persia! Since then they’ve become a global phenomena that come in more varieties, flavors, and styles than you can possibly imagine.
The first commercial cookie in the U.S. was the Animal Cracker, introduced in 1902.
- The Oreo, the best-selling cookie of the 20th century, was developed and introduced by the American company Nabisco, in 1912.
- The U.S. leads the world as the biggest cookie bakers and eaters, spending more than $550 million annually on Oreos alone.
- The Girl Scouts first began selling cookies In the 1920s.
- In 1989, New Mexico named the ‘bizcochito’ its official state cookie. Bizcochito, derived from the spanish word ‘bizcocho’ which means biscuit, is a delicious shortbread cookie flavored with anise and topped with cinnamon sugar.
- The U.S. has a National Cookie Cutter Historical Museum located within the Joplin Museum Complex in Joplin, Missouri.
- The official state cookie of both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania is the chocolate chip cookie.
- Early American tinsmiths began making cookie cutters by hand back in the 1700s.
- Christmas cookies date back to Medieval Europe.
- American cookie jars evolved from British biscuit jars and first appeared on the scene during the Depression in the 1930s when housewives began making more cookies at home, rather than buying them at the bakery, and needed containers for them.
- In the Middle East, chocolate chip cookies are eaten with a knife and fork and topped with chocolate sauce.
- Did you know 13.5% of Americans admit to eating 20 or more chocolate chip cookies at a time?
- Those cookies Cookie Monster scarfs down are actually rice cakes with brown dots painted on them.
- Letting prepared chocolate chip cookie rest in the refrigerator for 24 to 36 hours will give your cookies more flavor.
- Chocolate chip cookie consumption increased by 10% following the introduction of detailed nutrition fact labels.
- Chocolate chips were developed specifically for use in the chocolate chip cookie recipe.
- A fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies is one trick real estate agents have been using for decades.
- In the late 1970s, Secretary of State John Kerry was bored of being a just a lawyer so he opened a Boston cookie store that remains in business today.
- Cookie cutters were created in the 1700s by early American tinsmiths.
- Ruth Wakefield gets credit for creating the first chocolate chip cookies, a creation that happened by accident.
- Americans consume about 2 billion cookies each year, which averages to be about 300 cookies a year each.
The top 10 selling commercial cookies in the U.S. are:
- Nabisco Oreo
- Nabisco Chips Ahoy
- Nabisco Oreo Double Stuff
- Pepperidge Farm Milano
- Private Label Chocolate Chip
- Little Debbie Nutty Bar
- Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream
- Nabisco Chips Ahoy Chewy
- Nabisco Nilla Vanilla Wafers
- Private Label Sandwich Cookies
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