Cookie is a small, baked treat. The word cookie comes from the Dutch word koekje, meaning small cake. Similar treats are called biscuits in Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Cookies are usually made from a dough containing flour, sugar, eggs, and such fats as butter and shortening. A leavening agent—such as baking soda or baking powder—causes cookies to rise in a hot oven. Cookies have a variety of shapes and flavors. A cookie’s texture may be crisp, crumbly, tender, chewy, or a combination of these. Cookie dough contains less liquid than cake batter. Cookies bake up flatter and denser than do cakes.
Most cookies, such as chocolate chip cookies, are molded by hand or spooned onto baking sheets. Bar cookie dough is spread into a pan, baked, and then cut into individual cookies, much like brownies. Icebox cookie dough is shaped into a log and sliced. Rolled cookies are cut out into shapes from a rolled-out sheet of dough. Dough for certain delicate cookies is piped onto a baking sheet from a squeezable pastry bag.
Cookies originated in ancient Persia during the 600’s. The Persians sweetened their cookies with sugar cane. Ruth Wakefield, an American innkeeper, invented the chocolate chip cookie in the 1930’s.
See also Baking ; Wakefield, Ruth Graves .
