Bake Cookies Day is on December 18, just in time for Christmas. Cookies are more than just a baked treat, with generations bonding over it. What we love best about cookies is their versatility; crispy or soft and chewy, traditional shapes or special cookie-cutter designs, sugar, spices, dried fruit, chocolate, the list of options goes on. So get baking and fill your house with the aroma of warm, soft cookies baked to perfection.
- 7th Century – Being one of the first countries to grow sugar, cookie-style cakes were popular in the Persian empire.
- 17th Century – 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”.
- 1700s – Early American tinsmiths first made cookie cutters by hand in the 1700s.
- 1796 – Two recipes for cookies debuted in the first cookbook written by an American that was published in the United States. ‘American Cookery,’ authored by Amelia Simmons
- 1902 – Animal Crackers, introduced by Nabisco in 1902, were the first commercial cookies to be mass-produced in the U.S.
- 1921 – Baking icon Betty Crocker is created by the Washburn-Crosby milling company.
- 1930s – American cookie jars, descendents of British biscuit jars, were born out of need. They first appeared in the 1930s as Depression housewives slowly abandoned buying bakery-made foods, baking at home instead to save money.
- 1938 – Chocolate-chip cookies were created by Ruth Graves Wakefield and Sue Brides.
- 1960s – Little Debbie cookies, produced by McKee Foods, were branded in the 1960s after owners O.D. and Ruth McKee’s granddaughter, Debbie, then four years old.
- 1989 – New Mexico named the bizcochito (biz-koh’-shee-toh) its official state cookie in 1989, making it the state the first to adopt an official cookie.
- 1997 – July 9 – The chocolate chip cookie is declared as the official cookie for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
- The oldest-known cookie on record is the ‘pizzelle’ which was created in Italy.
- The first chocolate-chip cookie recipe was published in a Boston newspaper, titled ‘Butter Drop Do Cookies’.
- Chocolate chip cookies are the most popular and common cookies baked each year.
- The average American eats approximately 35,000 cookies in their lifetime.
- Americans consume over 2 billion cookies a year … about 300 cookies for each person.
- 245 million Americans consumed ready-to-eat cookies in 2020.
- 95.2 percent of U.S. households consume cookies.
- Half the cookies baked in American homes each year are chocolate chip.
- The Oreo was the best-selling cookie of the 20th century. Americans spend $550 million on Oreos each year.
- Santa Claus eats an estimated 336 million cookies on Christmas Eve.
- Cookie Monster has never eaten cookies. They’ve always been painted rice cakes.
- Chocolate chips don’t melt because they contain less cocoa butter than chocolate bars—if you crush up candy bars to add to your cookies, expect them to be extra gooey from the melted chocolate!
- The word biscotti translates from Italian to mean “twice cooked.” This is because the dough is shaped into loaves, baked until golden brown, sliced into individual cookies, and put back into the oven to bake again.
- In German, this cookie is called zwieback (“twice baked”).
- In Dutch, this type of cookie is called beschuit (or Dutch rusk). They are similarly baked as a loaf, then sliced, and the slices are baked again.
- The record for the most cookies baked in one hour is held by Hassett’s Bakery of Cork Island. They baked 4,695 cookies in one hour.
- According to Google Trends, “cookie” was the most-searched sweet during December last year.
- For both men and women, 33% say they eat cookies a couple of times a week.
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