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A cookie is a
baked Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferre ...
or cooked snack or
dessert Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as confections, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. In some parts of the world, such as much of Greece and West Africa, and most parts o ...
that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains
flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cul ...
,
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or do ...
, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or
butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condim ...
. It may include other ingredients such as
raisin A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, the word ''raisin'' is reserved for the ...
s, oats,
chocolate chip Chocolate chips or chocolate morsels are small chunks of sweetened chocolate, used as an ingredient in a number of desserts (notably chocolate chip cookies and muffins), in trail mix and less commonly in some breakfast foods such as pancakes. ...
s, nuts, etc. Most
English-speaking countries The following is a list of English-speaking population by country, including information on both native speakers and second-language speakers. List * The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total E ...
call crunchy cookies biscuits, except for the United States and Canada, where biscuit refers to a type of quick bread. Chewier biscuits are sometimes called ''cookies'' even in the United Kingdom. Some cookies may also be named by their shape, such as date squares or bars. Biscuit or cookie variants include sandwich biscuits, such as
custard cream A custard cream is a type of sandwich biscuit popular in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland filled with a creamy, custard-flavoured centre. Traditionally, the filling was buttercream (which is still used in home-made recipes) but nowaday ...
s, Jammie Dodgers,
Bourbons The House of Bourbon (, also ; ) is a European dynasty of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Spani ...
and
Oreo Oreo () (stylized as OREO) is a brand of sandwich cookie consisting of two biscuits or cookie pieces with a sweet creme filling. It was introduced by Nabisco on March 6, 1912, and through a series of corporate acquisitions, mergers and splits ...
s, with marshmallow or jam filling and sometimes dipped in
chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec ci ...
or another sweet coating. Cookies are often served with beverages such as
milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulat ...
,
coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...
or tea and sometimes "dunked", an approach which releases more flavour from
confections Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categorie ...
by dissolving the sugars, while also softening their texture. Factory-made cookies are sold in
grocery store A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...
s,
convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery ti ...
s and
vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fi ...
s. Fresh-baked cookies are sold at bakeries and
coffeehouse A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-ca ...
s.


Terminology

In many English-speaking countries outside
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...
, including the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, the most common word for a crisp cookie is biscuit. The term cookie is normally used to describe chewier ones. However, in many regions both terms are used. The container used to store cookies may be called a
cookie jar Cookie jars are utilitarian or decorative ceramic or glass jars often found in American and Canadian kitchens. In the United Kingdom, they are known as biscuit barrels or biscuit jars. If they are cans made out of tinplate, they are called bisc ...
. In Scotland the term cookie is sometimes used to describe a plain bun. Cookies that are baked as a solid layer on a sheet pan and then cut, rather than being baked as individual pieces, are called in
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...
bar cookies or traybakes.


Etymology

The word dates from at least 1701 in Scottish usage where the word meant "plain bun", rather than thin baked good, and so it is not certain whether it is the same word. From 1808, the word "cookie" is attested "...in the sense of "small, flat, sweet cake" in American English. The American use is derived from Dutch koekje "little cake," which is a diminutive of "koek" ("cake"), which came from the Middle Dutch word "koke". Another claim is that the American name derives from the Dutch word ''koekje'' or more precisely its informal, dialect variant ''koekie'' which means ''little cake,'' and arrived in
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
with the Dutch settlement of
New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...
, in the early 1600s. According to the Scottish National Dictionary, its Scottish name derives from the diminutive form (+ suffix ''-ie'') of the word ''cook'', giving the Middle Scots ''cookie'', ''cooky'' or ''cu(c)kie''. There was much trade and cultural contact across the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...
between the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
and Scotland during the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, which can also be seen in the history of curling and, perhaps,
golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
.


Description

Cookies are most commonly baked until crisp or else for just long enough to ensure soft interior. Other types of cookies are not baked at all, such as varieties of
peanut butter Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground, dry-roasted peanuts. It commonly contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers. Peanut butter is consumed in many countri ...
cookies that use solidified
chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec ci ...
rather than set eggs and wheat gluten as a binder. Cookies are produced in a wide variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars,
spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices a ...
s, chocolate,
butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condim ...
, peanut butter, nuts, or dried
fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...
s. A general theory of cookies may be formulated in the following way. Despite its descent from cakes and other sweetened breads, the cookie in almost all its forms has abandoned water as a medium for cohesion. Water in cakes serves to make the batter as thin as possible, the better to allow bubbles—responsible for a cake's fluffiness—to form. In the cookie the agent of cohesion has become some form of oil. Oils, whether in the form of butter, vegetable oils, or lard, are much more
viscous The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the in ...
than water and evaporate freely at a far higher temperature. Thus a cake made with butter or eggs in place of water is much denser after removal from the oven. Rather than evaporating as water does in a baking cake, oils in cookies remain. These oils saturate the cavities created during baking by bubbles of escaping gases. These gases are primarily composed of steam vaporized from the egg whites and the
carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is t ...
released by heating the baking powder. This saturation produces the most texturally attractive feature of the cookie, and indeed all fried foods: crispness saturated with a moisture (namely oil) that does not render soggy the food it has soaked into.


History

Cookie-like hard wafers have existed for as long as baking is documented, in part because they survive travel very well, but they were usually not sweet enough to be considered cookies by modern standards. Cookies appear to have their origins in 7th century AD
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. They spread to Europe through the
Muslim conquest of Spain The Umayyad conquest of Hispania, also known as the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom, was the initial expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate over Hispania (in the Iberian Peninsula) from 711 to 718. The conquest resulted in the decline of t ...
. By the 14th century, they were common in all levels of society throughout Europe, from royal cuisine to street vendors. The first documented instance of the figure-shaped gingerbread man was at the court of
Elizabeth I of England Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Eli ...
in the 16th century. She had the gingerbread figures made and presented in the likeness of some of her important guests. With global travel becoming widespread at that time, cookies made a natural travel companion, a modernized equivalent of the travel cakes used throughout history. One of the most popular early cookies, which traveled especially well and became known on every continent by similar names, was the
jumble Jumble is a word puzzle with a clue, a drawing illustrating the clue, and a set of words, each of which is “jumbled” by scrambling its letters. A solver reconstructs the words, and then arranges letters at marked positions in the words to sp ...
, a relatively hard cookie made largely from nuts, sweetener, and water. Cookies came to America through the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the late 1620s. The Dutch word "koekje" was Anglicized to "cookie" or cooky. The earliest reference to cookies in America is in 1703, when "The Dutch in New York provided...'in 1703...at a funeral 800 cookies...'" The most common modern cookie, given its style by the creaming of butter and sugar, was not common until the 18th century. The
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
in Britain and the consumers it created saw cookies (biscuits) become products for the masses, and firms such as Huntley & Palmers (formed in 1822), McVitie's (formed in 1830) and Carr's (formed in 1831) were all established. The decorative biscuit tin, invented by Huntley & Palmers in 1831, saw British cookies exported around the world. In 1891,
Cadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...
filed a patent for a chocolate-coated cookie.


Classification

Cookies are broadly classified according to how they are formed or made, including at least these categories: * ''Bar cookies'' consist of batter or other ingredients that are poured or pressed into a pan (sometimes in multiple layers) and cut into cookie-sized pieces after baking. In
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...
, bar cookies are known as "tray bakes". Examples include brownies, fruit squares, and bars such as
date square A date square is a Canadian dessert or bar cookie made of cooked dates with an oatmeal crumb topping. In Ohio it is known as matrimonial cake. In Eastern Canada it can also be known as date crumbles. It is often found in coffee shops as a sweet ...
s. * ''Drop cookies'' are made from a relatively soft dough that is dropped by spoonfuls onto the baking sheet. During baking, the mounds of dough spread and flatten. Chocolate chip cookies (Toll House cookies), oatmeal raisin (or other oatmeal-based) cookies, and
rock cake A rock cake, also called a rock bun, is a small cake with a rough surface resembling a rock. They were promoted by the British Ministry of Food during the Second World War since they require fewer eggs and less sugar than ordinary cakes, an impor ...
s are popular examples of drop cookies. This may also include ''thumbprint cookies'', for which a small central depression is created with a thumb or small spoon before baking to contain a filling, such as jam or a
chocolate chip Chocolate chips or chocolate morsels are small chunks of sweetened chocolate, used as an ingredient in a number of desserts (notably chocolate chip cookies and muffins), in trail mix and less commonly in some breakfast foods such as pancakes. ...
. In the UK, the term "cookie" often refers only to this particular type of product. * ''Filled cookies'' are made from a rolled cookie dough filled with a fruit, jam or confectionery filling before baking. Hamantashen are a filled cookie. * ''Molded cookies'' are also made from a stiffer dough that is molded into balls or cookie shapes by hand before baking.
Snickerdoodle A snickerdoodle is a type of cookie made with flour, fat, sugar, and salt, and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Eggs may also sometimes be used as an ingredient, with cream of tartar and baking soda added to leaven the dough. Snickerdoodles are charact ...
s and
peanut butter cookies A peanut butter cookie is a type of cookie that is distinguished for having peanut butter as a principal ingredient. The cookie originated in the United States, its development dating back to the 1910s. History George Washington Carver (1864–19 ...
are examples of molded cookies. Some cookies, such as hermits or
biscotti Biscotti (; ; en, biscuits), known also as cantucci (), are Italian almond biscuits that originated in the Tuscan city of Prato. They are twice-baked, oblong-shaped, dry, crunchy, and may be dipped in a drink, traditionally Vin Santo. Name ...
, are molded into large flattened loaves that are later cut into smaller cookies. * ''No-bake cookies'' are made by mixing a filler, such as cereal or nuts, into a melted confectionery binder, shaping into cookies or bars, and allowing to cool or harden. Oatmeal clusters and rum balls are no-bake cookies. * ''Pressed cookies'' are made from a soft dough that is extruded from a cookie press into various decorative shapes before baking. Spritzgebäck is an example of a pressed cookie. * ''Refrigerator cookies'' (also known as ''icebox cookies'') are made from a stiff dough that is refrigerated to make the raw dough even stiffer before cutting and baking. The dough is typically shaped into cylinders which are sliced into round cookies before baking. Pinwheel cookies and those made by Pillsbury are representative. * ''Rolled cookies'' are made from a stiffer dough that is rolled out and cut into shapes with a cookie cutter. Gingerbread men are an example. * '' Sandwich cookies'' are rolled or pressed cookies that are assembled as a
sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
with a sweet filling. Fillings include marshmallow, jam, and icing. The
Oreo Oreo () (stylized as OREO) is a brand of sandwich cookie consisting of two biscuits or cookie pieces with a sweet creme filling. It was introduced by Nabisco on March 6, 1912, and through a series of corporate acquisitions, mergers and splits ...
cookie, made of two chocolate cookies with a
vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus '' Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla ('' V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the plants produce the fruit from whic ...
icing filling, is an example. Other types of cookies are classified for other reasons, such as their ingredients, size, or intended time of serving: * ''Breakfast cookies'' are typically larger, lower-sugar cookies filled with "heart-healthy nuts and fiber-rich oats" that are eaten as a quick breakfast snack. * ''Low-fat cookies'' or ''diet cookies'' typically have lower fat than regular cookies.Insel, Paul; Ross, Don; McMahon, Kimberley; Bernstein, Melissa. ''Nutrition''. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2016 p. 335 * ''Raw cookie dough'' is served in some restaurants, though the eggs may be omitted since the dough is eaten raw, which could pose a
salmonella ''Salmonella'' is a genus of rod-shaped (bacillus) Gram-negative bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. The two species of ''Salmonella'' are '' Salmonella enterica'' and '' Salmonella bongori''. ''S. enterica'' is the type species and is ...
risk if eggs were used. Cookie Dough Confections in New York City is a restaurant that has a range of raw cookie dough flavors, which are scooped into cups for customers like ice cream. * ''Skillet cookies'' are big cookies that are cooked in a cast-iron skillet and served warm, while they are still soft and chewy. They are either eaten straight from the pan or cut into wedges, often with vanilla ice cream on top. * ''Supersized cookies'' are large cookies such as the Panera Kitchen Sink Cookie. These very large cookies are sold at grocery stores, restaurants and coffeeshops. * ''Vegan cookies'' can be made with flour, sugar, nondairy milk and nondairy margarine. Aquafaba icing can used to decorate the cookies. *''Cookie cakes'' are made in a larger circular shape usually with writing made of frosting.


Reception

Leah Ettman from Nutrition Action has criticized the high calorie count and fat content of supersized cookies, which are extra large cookies; she cites the Panera Kitchen Sink Cookie, a supersized chocolate chip cookie, which measures 5 1/2 inches in diameter and has 800 calories. For busy people who eat breakfast cookies in the morning, Kate Bratskeir from the ''Huffington Post'' recommends lower-sugar cookies filled with "heart-healthy nuts and fiber-rich oats". A book on nutrition by Paul Insel et al. notes that "low-fat" or "diet cookies" may have the same number of calories as regular cookies, due to
added sugar Added sugars or free sugars are sugar carbohydrates (caloric sweeteners) added to food and beverages at some point before their consumption. These include added carbohydrates (monosaccharides and disaccharides), and more broadly, sugars na ...
.


Popular culture

There are a number of slang usages of the term "cookie". The slang use of "cookie" to mean a person, "especially an attractive woman" is attested to in print since 1920. The catchphrase "that's the way the cookie crumbles", which means "that's just the way things happen" is attested to in print in 1955. Other slang terms include "smart cookie” and “tough cookie.” According to ''The Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms'', a smart cookie is “someone who is clever and good at dealing with difficult situations.” The word "cookie" has been vulgar slang for "vagina" in the US since 1970.Partridge, Eric. ''The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English''. Taylor & Francis, 2009. p. 229. The word "cookies" is used to refer to the contents of the stomach, often in reference to vomiting (e.g., "pop your cookies" a 1960s expression, or "toss your cookies", a 1970s expression). The expression "cookie cutter", in addition to referring literally to a culinary device used to cut rolled cookie dough into shapes, is also used metaphorically to refer to items or things "having the same configuration or look as many others" (e.g., a "cookie cutter
tract house Tract housing is a type of housing development in which multiple similar houses are built on a tract (area) of land that is subdivided into smaller lots. Tract housing developments are found in suburb developments that were modeled on the "Levit ...
") or to label something as "stereotyped or formulaic" (e.g., an action movie filled with "generic cookie cutter characters"). "Cookie duster" is a whimsical expression for a mustache. Cookie Monster is a
Muppet The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an absurdist, burlesque, and self-referential style of variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they are the focus of a media franchise that encompasses ...
on the long-running
children's television show Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early evenin ...
''
Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000 ...
.'' He is best known for his voracious appetite for cookies and his famous eating phrases, such as "Me want cookie!", "Me eat cookie!" (or simply "COOKIE!"), and "Om nom nom nom" (said through a mouth full of food).


Notable varieties

*
Alfajor An ''alfajor'' or ''alajú'' (, plural ''alfajores'') is a traditional confection typically made of flour, honey, and nuts. It is found in Argentina, Peru, Chile, the Philippines, Southern Brazil, Southern France, Spain, and Uruguay. The ar ...
* Angel Wings (Chruściki) *
Animal cracker An animal cracker is a particular type of cracker, baked in the shape of an animal, usually an animal either at a zoo or a circus, such as a lion, a tiger, a bear, or an elephant. The most common variety is light-colored and slightly sweet, bu ...
*
Anzac biscuit The Anzac biscuit is a sweet biscuit, popular in Australia and New Zealand, made using rolled oats, flour, sugar, butter (or margarine), golden syrup, baking soda, boiling water, and (optionally) desiccated coconut. Anzac biscuits have long be ...
* Berger cookie * Berner Haselnusslebkuchen *
Biscotti Biscotti (; ; en, biscuits), known also as cantucci (), are Italian almond biscuits that originated in the Tuscan city of Prato. They are twice-baked, oblong-shaped, dry, crunchy, and may be dipped in a drink, traditionally Vin Santo. Name ...
*
Biscuit rose de Reims Biscuit rose de Reims (french: biscuits roses de Reims), is a pink biscuit found in French cuisine, made pink by the addition of carmine. Background Originating in Reims, Biscuit rose de Reims is a product of the Biscuits Fossier company. It is ...
*
Black and white cookie Black-and-white cookies, half-and-half cookies, and half-moon cookies are similar round cookies iced or frosted in two colors, with one half vanilla and the other chocolate. They are found in the Northeastern United States and Florida. Black ...
* Blondie *
Bourbon biscuit The Bourbon (pronounced or ) is a sandwich biscuit consisting of two thin rectangular dark chocolate-flavoured biscuits with a chocolate buttercream filling. It was voted the UK's number one biscuit in 2018. The biscuit was introduced in 1910 ( ...
* Brownie * Butter cookie * Chocolate chip cookie *
Chocolate-coated marshmallow treat Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats also known as Chocolate teacakes are confections consisting of a biscuit base topped with marshmallow-like filling and then coated in a hard shell of chocolate. They were invented in Denmark in the 19th centu ...
* Congo bar * Digestive biscuit *
Fat rascal A fat rascal, closely related to the historical turf cake, is a type of cake, similar to a scone or rock cake in both taste and ingredients. It originated in Yorkshire at least as early as the 19th century. History Fat rascals were known in the ...
* Fattigmann *
Flies graveyard Flies' graveyard and flies' cemetery are nicknames used in various parts of the United Kingdom for sweet pastries filled with currants or raisins, which are jokingly said to resemble dead flies. In Scotland, they are known as ''fly cakes'', '' ...
*
Florentine biscuit A Florentine biscuit (or simply, a Florentine) is a sweet pastry of nuts and fruit. Florentines are made of nuts (typically hazelnuts and almonds) and candied cherries mixed with sugar melted together with butter and honey, cooked in an oven. Th ...
* Fortune cookie * Fruit squares and bars ( date, fig, lemon, raspberry, etc.) * Ginger snap * Gingerbread house * Gingerbread man * Graham cracker *
Hamentashen A hamantash (pl. ''hamantashen''; also spelled ''hamantasch'', ''hamantaschen''; yi, המן־טאַש ''homentash'', pl. ''homentashn'', 'Haman pockets') is an Ashkenazi Jewish triangular filled-pocket pastry, associated with the Jewish holiday ...
* Hobnob biscuit *
Joe Frogger The Joe Frogger is a type of cookie that has been popular in New England since the late 18th century. It is flavored with molasses, rum, and spices (ginger, allspice, nutmeg, cloves) and has a soft, chewy center. Because the cookies kept well they ...
*
Jumble Jumble is a word puzzle with a clue, a drawing illustrating the clue, and a set of words, each of which is “jumbled” by scrambling its letters. A solver reconstructs the words, and then arranges letters at marked positions in the words to sp ...
* Kifli * Koulourakia * Krumkake * Linzer cookie *
Macaroon A macaroon ( ) is a small cake or biscuit, typically made from ground almonds (the original main ingredient), coconut or other nuts (or even potato), with sugar and sometimes flavourings (e.g. honey, vanilla, spices), food colouring, glacé che ...
* Meringue * Nice biscuit *
Oatmeal raisin cookie An oatmeal raisin cookie is a type of drop cookie made from an oatmeal-based dough with raisins. Its ingredients also typically include flour, sugar, eggs, salt, and spices. A descendant of the Scottish oatcake, the oatmeal raisin cookie has beco ...
*
Pastelito Cuban pastries (known in Spanish as ''pasteles'' or ''pastelitos (also the name for Venezuelan pastries made in region of los Andes)'') are baked puff pastry–type pastries filled with sweet or savory fillings. Traditional fillings include ...
* Peanut butter blossom cookie * Peanut butter cookie * Pepparkakor * Pfeffernüsse *
Pizzelle ''Pizzelle'' (, singular ''pizzella'') are traditional Italian waffle cookies made from flour, eggs, sugar, butter or vegetable oil, and flavoring (usually anise or anisette, less commonly vanilla or lemon zest). Pizzelle can be hard and cr ...
*
Polvorón A polvorón (From , the Spanish word for powder, or dust) is a type of heavy, soft, and very crumbly Spanish shortbread made of flour, sugar, milk, and nuts (especially almonds). They are mostly produced in Andalusia, where there are about 70 ...
* Qurabiya * Rainbow cookie *
Ranger Cookie A Ranger Cookie is an improvised confection created through the use of MRE condiments. The cookie is created by baking sugar and coffee creamer over a heat source. Depending on the MRE variant, other ingredients can be added to the cookie A ...
* Rich tea * Riposteria * Rosette * Rum ball * Rusk * Russian tea cake *
Rock cake A rock cake, also called a rock bun, is a small cake with a rough surface resembling a rock. They were promoted by the British Ministry of Food during the Second World War since they require fewer eggs and less sugar than ordinary cakes, an impor ...
* Sablé * Sandbakelse *
Şekerpare Şekerpare is one of the popular desserts in the Turkish cuisine. Mainly prepared by baking some soft balls of almond based pastry dipped in thick lemon-flavored sugar syrup, şekerpare is pronounced “''sheh-kehr-PAH-reh''” in Turkish. Refe ...
* Shortbread *
Snickerdoodle A snickerdoodle is a type of cookie made with flour, fat, sugar, and salt, and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Eggs may also sometimes be used as an ingredient, with cream of tartar and baking soda added to leaven the dough. Snickerdoodles are charact ...
*
Speculoos Speculoos (sold as Biscoff in the United States and the United Kingdom) is a biscuit originally manufactured in Belgium. Although the name is similar to speculaas, speculoos is a different product. The biscuits are made without the mixture of spic ...
* Springerle * Spritzgebäck (Spritz) * Stroopwafel * Sugar cookie * Tea biscuit *
Toruń gingerbread Toruń gingerbread ( pl, pierniki toruńskie, german: Thorner Lebkuchen) is a traditional Polish cuisine, Polish gingerbread that has been produced since the Middle Ages in the city of Toruń. History Old Polish sayings connect Toruń with mak ...
*
Tuile A tuile () is a baked wafer, French in origin, generally arced in shape, that is made most often from dough (but also possibly from cheese), often served as an accompaniment of other dishes. ''Tuile'' is the French word for tile, after the shape ...
* Wafer * Windmill cookie


Gallery

File:Maple spice cookies and thumbprint cookies.jpg, A variety of Maple spice cookies and thumbprint cookies. File:Cookie Cake.JPG, A cookie cake is a large cookie that can be decorated with icing or fondant like a
cake Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients, and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate ...
. This is made by
Mrs. Fields Mrs. Fields' Original Cookies Inc. is an American franchisor in the snack food industry, with Mrs. Fields and TCBY as its core brands. Through its franchisees' retail stores, it is one of the largest retailers of freshly baked, on-premises specia ...
. File:Heart shaped cookies.jpg, Hearts shaped
Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, thr ...
cookies adorned with icing. File:McVitie's chocolate digestive biscuit.jpg, A McVitie's chocolate digestive, a popular biscuit to dunk in tea/
coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...
in the UK. File:Fortune cookie.png, A fortune cookie. File:Meringue cookies.jpg, Meringue cookies. File:Oreo-Two-Cookies.jpg, Commercially sold
Oreo Oreo () (stylized as OREO) is a brand of sandwich cookie consisting of two biscuits or cookie pieces with a sweet creme filling. It was introduced by Nabisco on March 6, 1912, and through a series of corporate acquisitions, mergers and splits ...
cookies. File:Cookie stack.jpg, Choc-chip cookies. File:Cookies being sold.jpg, A cookie shop, filled with a wide range of cookies. File:CookieCuttersAl.jpg, Cookie cutters. File:Chef's Cookie Deep Dish - 27682832174.jpg, A cookie dessert, topped with
ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as ...
. File:Chocolate chip cookies.jpg, A plate of chocolate chip cookies. File:Algerian_cookies.jpg, Algerian cookies.


Related pastries and confections

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Acıbadem kurabiyesi Acıbadem kurabiyesi ( tr, acıbadem kurabiyesi, lit=bitter almond biscuit) is a traditional Turkish biscuit made of almonds, sugar and egg whites. The traditional recipes include a small amount of bitter almonds, which gives this cookie its ...
*
Animal crackers An animal cracker is a particular type of cracker, baked in the shape of an animal, usually an animal either at a zoo or a circus, such as a lion, a tiger, a bear, or an elephant. The most common variety is light-colored and slightly sweet, bu ...
*
Berliner (pastry) A Berliner is a German doughnut with no central hole, made from sweet yeast dough fried in fat or oil, with a marmalade or jam filling like a jelly doughnut, and usually icing, powdered sugar or conventional sugar on top. History Sugar was ...
* Bun *
Candy Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English, New Zealand English), is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, called ''sugar confectionery'', encompasses any sweet confection, i ...
*
Cake Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients, and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate ...
*
Churro A churro (, ) is a type of fried dough from Spanish and Portuguese cuisine. They are also found in Latin American cuisine and in other areas that have received immigration from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, especially in the So ...
*
Cracker (food) A cracker is a flat, dry baked food typically made with flour. Flavorings or seasonings, such as salt, herbs, seeds, or cheese, may be added to the dough or sprinkled on top before baking. Crackers are often branded as a nutritious and convenie ...
* Cupcake *
Danish pastry A Danish pastry ( da, wienerbrød ) sometimes shortened to just Danish, especially in American English) is a multilayered, laminated sweet pastry in the '' viennoiserie'' tradition. The concept was brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers, where th ...
* Doughnut * Funnel cake * Galette * Graham cracker * Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme * Kit Kat * Halvah * Ladyfinger (biscuit) *
Lebkuchen (), or , are a honey-sweetened German cake molded cookie or bar cookie that has become part of Germany's Christmas traditions. It is similar to gingerbread. Etymology The etymology of ''Leb-'' in the term ''Lebkuchen'' is uncertain. Pro ...
* Mille-feuille *
Marzipan Marzipan is a confection consisting primarily of sugar, honey, and almond meal (ground almonds), sometimes augmented with almond oil or extract. It is often made into sweets; common uses are chocolate-covered marzipan and small marzipan imit ...
* Mille-feuille (Napoleon) * Moon pie *
Pastry Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ...
* Palmier * Petit four * Rum ball * S'more * Snack cake * Tartlet * Teacake * Teething biscuit *
Whoopie pie The whoopie pie, alternatively called a black moon, gob (term indigenous to the Pittsburgh region), black-and-white, bob, or "BFO" for Big Fat Oreo (also recorded as "Devil Dogs" and "Twins" in 1835), is an American baked product that may be cons ...


Manufacturers

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Arnott's Biscuits Arnott's Biscuits Limited is an Australian producer of biscuits and snack food. Founded in 1865, they are the largest producer of biscuits in Australia and a subsidiary of KKR. History In 1847, Scottish immigrant William Arnott opened a b ...
*
Bahlsen Bahlsen is a German food company based in Hanover. It was founded in July 1889 by Hermann Bahlsen (1859–1919) as the "Hannoversche Keksfabrik H. Bahlsen". German politician Ernst Albrecht (1930–2014) was CEO of Bahlsen in the 1970s and the ...
*
Burton's Foods Burton's Biscuit Company is a British biscuit manufacturer. It is recognised in the UK as the second-biggest supplier of biscuits. The company was formed by the merger of Burton's Gold Medal Biscuits and Horizon Biscuit Company in October 2000. I ...
*
D.F. Stauffer Biscuit Company , formerly , is a Japanese food company. It was a major dairy industry company established in 1917. Apart from dairy products like milk, ice cream, and cheese, their lineup includes sports drinks, pizza, chocolate bars and food supplements li ...
* DeBeukelaer * Famous Amos (Division of Ferrero) * Fazer *
Fox's Biscuits Fox's Biscuits is a British biscuit manufacturer, founded by the Fox family in a terraced house, 17 Whitaker Street, Batley in West Yorkshire in 1853. The head office and main factory are based in the town and has another site in Wesham in Lan ...
* Interbake Foods * Jules Destrooper * Keebler * Lance * Lotte Confectionery (Division of Lotte) *
Lotus Bakeries Lotus Bakeries is a Belgian biscuit company, founded in 1932, with its headquarters in Lembeke, Kaprijke, Belgium. Lotus is known for its speculoos biscuits and biscuit-based products, branded as Lotus Biscoff in the United States, United King ...
*
McKee Foods McKee Foods Corporation is a privately held and family-owned American snack food and granola manufacturer headquartered in Collegedale, Tennessee. The corporation is the maker of Drake's Cakes, Fieldstone Bakery snacks and cereal, Little Debbie ...
* Meiji Seika Kaisha Ltd. *
Mrs. Fields Mrs. Fields' Original Cookies Inc. is an American franchisor in the snack food industry, with Mrs. Fields and TCBY as its core brands. Through its franchisees' retail stores, it is one of the largest retailers of freshly baked, on-premises specia ...
*
Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco' ...
(Division of
Mondelēz International Mondelez International, Inc. ( ), often styled Mondelēz, is an American multinational confectionery, food, holding and beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an annual revenue of about $26 billion and operates i ...
) *
Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...
*
Northern Foods Northern Foods is a British food manufacturer headquartered in Wakefield, England. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the original FTSE 100 Index. The company is credited, together with Marks & Spencer, ...
*
Otis Spunkmeyer Otis Spunkmeyer Inc. is a baked goods distribution company. Otis Spunkmeyer produces cookies, muffins, frozen cookie doughs, and other pastries. History Ken Rawlings, the founder of Otis Spunkmeyer, Inc., opened the first fresh-baked cookie s ...
(Division of
Aryzta ARYZTA AG is a food business based in Zurich with operations in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It is incorporated in Switzerland and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (the Zurich Stock Exchange). It discontinued its listing on Eur ...
) * Pillsbury (Division of
General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company or ...
) *
Pinnacle Foods Pinnacle Foods, Inc., is a packaged foods company headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, that specializes in shelf-stable and frozen foods. The company became a subsidiary of Conagra Brands on October 26, 2018. History The company was fou ...
* Pepperidge Farm (Division of
Campbell Soup Company Campbell Soup Company, trade name, doing business as Campbell's, is an American processed food and snack company. The company is most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products; however, through mergers and acquisitions, it has gro ...
) * Royal Dansk (Division of Kelsen Group) * Sunshine Biscuits (historical) *
United Biscuits United Biscuits (UB) is a British multinational food manufacturer, makers of McVitie's biscuits, Jacob's Cream Crackers, and Twiglets. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In ...
* Walkers Shortbread *
Utz Brands Utz Brands, Inc. , more commonly known as Utz, is a large American snack food company based in Hanover, Pennsylvania. The company produces a wide variety of potato chips, pretzels, and other snacks, with most of its products primarily sold ...


Product lines and brands

*
Animal Crackers An animal cracker is a particular type of cracker, baked in the shape of an animal, usually an animal either at a zoo or a circus, such as a lion, a tiger, a bear, or an elephant. The most common variety is light-colored and slightly sweet, bu ...
(Nabisco, Keebler, Cadbury, Bahlsen, others) * Anna's (Lotus) * Archway Cookies (Lance) * Barnum's Animals (Nabisco) *
Betty Crocker Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was originally created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 following a contest in the ''Saturday Evening Post''. In 1954, G ...
(General Mills, cookie mixes) * Biscoff (Lotus) *
Chips Ahoy! Chips Ahoy! is an American chocolate chip cookie brand, baked and marketed by Nabisco, a subsidiary of Mondelez International, that debuted in 1963. Chips Ahoy! cookies are available in different variations such as, original, reduced-fat, chunky, ...
(Nabisco) * Chips Deluxe (Keebler) * Danish Butter Cookies (Royal Dansk) * Duncan Hines (Pinnacle, cookie mixes) * Famous Amos (Kellogg) * Fig Newton (Nabisco) *
Fox's Biscuits Fox's Biscuits is a British biscuit manufacturer, founded by the Fox family in a terraced house, 17 Whitaker Street, Batley in West Yorkshire in 1853. The head office and main factory are based in the town and has another site in Wesham in Lan ...
(Northern) * Fudge Shoppe (Keebler) * Girl Scout cookie (Keebler, Interbake) * Hello Panda (Meiji) * Hit (
Bahlsen Bahlsen is a German food company based in Hanover. It was founded in July 1889 by Hermann Bahlsen (1859–1919) as the "Hannoversche Keksfabrik H. Bahlsen". German politician Ernst Albrecht (1930–2014) was CEO of Bahlsen in the 1970s and the ...
) * Hydrox (Sunshine, discontinued by Keebler) * Jaffa Cakes (McVitie) * Jammie Dodgers (United) * Koala's March (Lotte) *
Leibniz-Keks The Leibniz-Keks or Choco Leibniz is a German brand of biscuit or cookie produced by the Bahlsen food company since 1891. It was created by the firm as a rival to a similar French biscuit, the Petit-Beurre. Name The brand name ''Leibniz'' com ...
(Bahlsen) * Little Debbie (McKee) *
Lorna Doone ''Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor'' is a novel by English author Richard Doddridge Blackmore, published in 1869. It is a romance based on a group of historical characters and set in the late 17th century in Devon and Somerset, particularly ar ...
(Nabisco) * Maryland Cookies (Burton's) * McVitie's (United) *
Milano Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ha ...
(Pepperidge Farm) * Nilla Wafers (Nabisco) *
Nutter Butter Nutter Butter is an American sandwich cookie brand, first introduced in 1969 and currently owned by Nabisco, which is a subsidiary of Mondelez International. It is claimed to be the best-selling U.S. peanut butter sandwich cookie, with around a ...
(Nabisco) *
Oreo Oreo () (stylized as OREO) is a brand of sandwich cookie consisting of two biscuits or cookie pieces with a sweet creme filling. It was introduced by Nabisco on March 6, 1912, and through a series of corporate acquisitions, mergers and splits ...
(Nabisco) * Pillsbury (General Mills, cookie mixes) * Pecan Sandies (Keebler) * Peek Freans (United) * Pirouline (DeBeukelaer) * Stauffer's (Meiji) * Stella D'Oro (Lance) * Sunshine (Keebler) * Teddy Grahams (Nabisco) * Toll House (Nestle) * Tim Tam (Arnott's) *
Vienna Fingers Vienna Fingers is an American brand of cookie made by the Keebler Company, a division of Ferrero SpA. They consist of a sandwich of vanilla flavored outer crust filled with vanilla cream flavored filling. Akin to an Oreo, the surface is textured a ...
(Keebler)


Miscellaneous

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Christmas cookie Christmas cookies or Christmas biscuits are traditionally sugar cookies or biscuits (though other flavours may be used based on family traditions and individual preferences) cut into various shapes related to Christmas. History Modern Christma ...
* Cookie cutter * Cookie dough * Cookie exchange * Cookie Clicker * Cookie Monster * Cookie sheet *
Cookie table A cookie table is a wedding tradition where in addition to a wedding cake, a large table with different cookies is presented to guests at the wedding reception. Cookies are generally prepared by family members in advance of the reception. It is ty ...
* Cookies and cream * Girl Scout cookie


See also

* Dunking (biscuit) * List of baked goods * List of cookies ** List of shortbread biscuits and cookies * List of desserts * Cookie Clicker


References


Further reading

*


External links

* * {{Authority control Biscuits Desserts Iranian desserts Snack foods Types of food