Home Today Is Sugar Cookies Originated In 7th Century Persia

Sugar Cookies Originated In 7th Century Persia

sugar

Observed each year on July 9, National Sugar Cookie Day honors the ever popular and delicious sugar cookie.

  • Sugar cookies have a lengthy historical background. The origins of cookies date back to the 7th century in Persia, along with the cultivation of sugar.
  • The sugar cookie as we know it today was created by Protestant settlers in the Nazareth colony of Pennsylvania in the 1700’s. They baked their cookies in the shape of a keystone, the state’s symbol.
  • The first sugar cookies weren’t called by this name. When word started spreading throughout Europe in the 17th century about these tasty desserts, and later when they were introduced to the Americas, some entertaining terms were employed to describe these small treats. After all, this child-sized indulgence deserves a few whimsical appellations like jumbles, jumbals, crybabies, plunkets and gemmels.
  • Early cookie recipes that probably morphed into the modern sugar cookie were called gimblettes in France and cimbellines in Italy, too.
  • About 171 million tons (154 million metric tons) of raw sugar will be made from sugarcane and sugar beets worldwide in 2012.
  • Sugar adds bulk and contributes to the cookies’ color. There are often different types of sugar used in a single recipe. With more light brown or dark brown sugar, the finished cookies will be darker in color.
  • The technique known as creaming can help you create fluffier cookies and get more out of a single batch. When you properly cream butter and sugar, you’re adding air to the cookie dough, lightening it and giving yourself more to work with.
  • In 2015, Pillsbury earned the world record for most cookies/biscuits iced in one hour, enlisting the help of shoppers at Mall of America to decorate a total of 1,169 sugar cookies.
  • The invention of biscuit/cookie cutter in 1875 helped making cookies easier with more variation and complicated shapes.
  • While traditionally Christmas was celebrated with cookies like Gingerbread or Springerle, around the early 20th century children began to leave sugar cookies and milk out for Santa Clause on Christmas Eve.
  • There are eight basic types of cookies: bar cookies, drop cookies, fried cookies, molded cookies, no-bake cookies, refrigerator (ice box) cookies, rolled cookies and sandwich cookies.
  • Like cakes and pastries, cookies are the descendants of the earliest food cooked by man — grain-water-paste baked on hot stones by Neolithic farmers 10,000 years ago.
  • Cookies came to America through the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the late 1620s. The name cookie is derived from the Dutch word koekje, meaning “small or little cake.” The earliest reference to cookies in America is in 1703, when “The Dutch in New York provided…’in 1703…at a funeral 800 cookies…’”
  • Fortune cookie is actually an American invention originating in California.
  • Americans consume over 2 billion cookies a year – about 300 cookies for each person.
  • The average American eats 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Mobile-Cuisine

Sugar

Sweet Tooth Design

Just Fun Facts