‘Tis the season that every direction you turn there are cookie recipes. Our State magazine, one of my favorites, offers an emailed cookie recipe each day approaching Christmas. I check out the recipe daily; I don’t bake the cookies but I enjoy reading the recipes. The New York Times has a cookie-a-day as well. Some sound fairly simple and others sound incredibly complicated. There are cookie recipes every direction you turn, not to mention the plethora of cookies appearing in stores as the holidays begin to overwhelm us.
The word cookie is derived from the Dutch work koekje which means “small cake.” The dictionary defines cookies as small, flat or slightly raised cakes. Long, long ago (as far back as the 7th century from what I can find), cake bakers in Persia needed a way to see if their ovens were at the correct temperature. They would put a small amount of cake batter in the oven to test the temperature—and the cookie was born! By the end of the 14th century, cookies were popular throughout Europe. As people set out to explore the world, cookies went along with them.
Because it is so prevalent, many think that the chocolate chip cookie was the first cookie invented in the United States. Not true. There were other cookies that came before but none are so well-known. The chocolate chip cookie was invented by accident by a woman named Ruth Graves Wakefield who ran the Toll House Restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts. In 1937 Ruth was planning to make some Butter Do Drop cookies but at the last minute chopped up a bar of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate and added it to her to her recipe. She thought the chocolate would melt as they baked but she was surprised to discover the chocolate pieces kept their shape. And the chocolate chip cookie—which would become Toll House Cookies—was born.
Ruth and Nestle struck a deal and in 1939 Nestle introduced “Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels” and to this day, the Toll House Cookie recipe is printed on each and every bag of the morsels, more often know these days as “chips.”
My mother was not a cookie baker but she did, a few times a year, bake Toll House Cookies. As much as I love sweet things, I have never liked chocolate chip cookies—not even my mother’s. I do confess that a few years ago I tried one of our daughter’s chocolate chip cookies and loved it. How can this be, I wondered?!? The secret is our daughter makes hers with milk chocolate morsels, not the semi-sweet. So now I know that it is the semi-sweet chocolate I do not like, not the cookie itself.
In thinking about cookies, I realized that homemade cookies were not a mainstay for my family. I don’t remember my grandmother (a fabulous baker of cakes and pies and all such wonderful things) ever making cookies. As I mentioned earlier, my mother made toll house cookies only occasionally. The only other home-baked childhood cookie I remember were the Pillsbury slice and bake sugar cookies. As children we had the joy of decorating those with colored sugars which was great fun, but I never cared for the taste.
I pondered why cookies were not in the baking repertoire of my grandmother but then learned that early American cookbooks did not include cookies at all. Cookies are somewhat a newfangled invention for home bakers.
My school lunchbox almost always had two cookies alongside my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The cookies were not homemade and were usually whatever was on sale. Think generic store brand, not even a close relative of Oreos.
The first time I ever had a Pepperidge Farm cookie was when I was in college. I remember my friend Kathy saying that the little bags of Pepperidge Farm cookies were invented so that you could easily eat at least half the bag on your way home from the grocery store!
I did bake a variety of homemade cookies when our children were growing up and they both have some wonderful cookies that they make from scratch. Our son used to bake hundreds (literally) of gingerbread men every year at Christmas that he gifted to his co-workers. Our daughter makes a gingerbread cookie that is one of my very favorites; she mailed us a tin of those cookies— and a tin of homemade Chex mix— last Christmas. What a delight! I am grateful that our children don’t rely on slice and bake.
The best news perhaps, even though there are literally hundreds, maybe thousands of cookie recipes available, is that you can also purchase really wonderful cookies.
I love the German gingerbread cookies that appear to be made with a communion wafer as the base. My sister introduced these to me as her husband had family in Germany who sent these each Christmas. There are Moravian cookies made here in North Carolina in a variety of flavors that are so thin you can almost read through them. Years ago we loved visiting the bakery at Colonial Williamsburg for a warm gingerbread cookie right out of the oven. I still have the recipe. Never made them but I have the recipe. I love the buttery, crumbly Walker Shortbread cookies from Scotland. You really don’t need to bake to enjoy good cookies.
My husband’s childhood favorite was a cookie known as a Sand Tart. He remembers them paper-thin with finely chopped peanuts sprinkled on top. We have dozens of Sand Tart recipes but none have been able to re-create his fond childhood memories. Recently we were able to buy some Sand Tarts from Clyde Weaver at the Lancaster Pennsylvania Downtown Market but alas! they are sprinkled with sugar, not chopped peanuts.
We had friends in Vermont who were magnificent cookie bakers; we were truly blessed to receive a plate of their beautiful and delicious cookies each year at Christmas. The variety was amazing and the deliciousness was stunning. Home baked cookies are a wonderful gift!
The one cookie I still make (but only very occasionally) are the Oatmeal Raisin cookies from the recipe on the lid of the round Quaker Oats boxes. Most recently I have made them with dried cranberries (which we always buy when we visit Massachusetts, land of the cranberry bogs) instead of raisins. I try to convince myself that eating oatmeal cookies for breakfast is quite healthy—just like a bowl of oatmeal in a hand-held format, right?
I am curious about your cookie memories—from childhood and today. Do you still bake cookies? What is your favorite to bake? Your favorite to eat? Is there a store bought cookie that you just can’t pass by?
Perhaps a little touch of Cookie Monster lives inside each of us!
Still on the lookout for powdered milk so I can make the best “cookie” ever—PB balls!
We laughed at your opening discussion of looking at all those delicious recipes but not making them. Around here we refer to such activity as perusing food porn!😜