Cookies

A Presentation on Cookies

1. By Chef Chhandadeepa COOKIES

2. By definition, a cookie can be any of a variety of hand-held, flour-based sweet cakes, either crisp or soft. That means cookie is a  baked or cooked food  that is small, flat and sweet dry cake — single-serving finger food.

3. Each country has its own word for cookie. In most English-speaking countries except for the United States and Canada, crisp cookies are called  biscuits . 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 . In Spain they’re  Galletas . Germans call them  Keks  or  Plzchen  for Christmas cookies, and in Italy there are several names to identify various forms of cookies including  Amaretti  and  Biscotti , and so on.  The name cookie is derived from the Dutch word  Koekje , meaning “small or little cake.”  Biscuit comes from the Latin word  bis coctum , which means, “twice baked.” Terminology

4. Cookies are broadly classified according to how they are formed. 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. 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 cakes are popular examples of drop cookies. Filled cookies  are made from a rolled cookie dough filled with a fruit or confectionery filling before baking. Hamantashen is an example of a filled cookie. Classification

5. Molded cookies  are also made from a stiffer dough that is molded into balls or cookie shapes by hand before baking.  Snicker doodles and   peanut butter cookies are examples of molded 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. 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.

6. Sandwich cookies  are rolled or pressed cookies that are assembled as a  sandwich with a sweet filling. Fillings include marshmallow, jam, and icing. The Oreo cookie, made of two chocolate cookies with a vanilla icing filling, is an example. Vegan cookies  can be made with flour, sugar, non-dairy milk and non-dairy margarine. The icing can be made with aquafaba to decorate the cookies. Gluten free cookies can be made with gluten free flour like almond flour , sugar, milk , egg .

7. Cookies started out long ago, not as a treat or a comfort food, but as an oven regulator! According to culinary historians, the first historic record of cookies was their use as test cakes.  A small amount of cake batter was baked to test the oven temperature. The earliest cookie-style cakes are thought to date back to 7th century Persia A.D (now Iran), one of the first countries to cultivate sugar . Origin and history By the end of the 14th century, there were several Renaissance cook-books which were rich in cookie recipes. First cookies recipe content book was the Opera Dell'arte Del Cucinare in the year 1570 by a famous Italian Renaissance C hef Bartolomeo Scappi.

8. In those times, cookies were sold in the streets of Paris and Milan as a one-bite street food. The 2 nd cookery book which contained cookie recipes amongst others was The Good Huswifes Jewell , an English cookery book by the cookery and housekeeping writer Thomas Dawson, first published in 1585. It includes recipes for medicines as well as food. To the spices found in Medieval English cooking, the book adds herbs, especially parsley  and thyme. Sugar is used in many of the dishes, along with now-familiar ingredients like violets and rosewater. The cookie recipe listed in the book had instructions on making square short-cookie enriched with egg yolks, sweet butter , few cloves, sugar and saffron baked on parchment paper . The book includes recipes still current, such as pancakes, haggis, and salad and  is the first English cookery book to give a recipe for sweet potatoes.

9. As technology improved during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, so did the ability of bakers to make a wide range of sweet and savory cookies for commercial consumption. Despite more varieties becoming available, the essential ingredients of biscuits didn’t change. These ingredients are ‘soft’ wheat flour, which contains less protein than the flour used to bake bread, sugar, and fats, such as butter and oil. After that another variety of cookies were introduced and fondly called Jumble Cookies . Jumbles ( also called Jambles, Jumbals, Jumbolls, Jumbolds, Jumballs ) are cookie-like pastries, common in England and abroad since the Middle Ages, which tend to have a relatively simple recipe of nuts, flour, eggs and sugar, with vanilla, anise, or caraway seed used for flavoring. They were formerly often made in the form of rings or rolls. Jumbles were widespread in Europe by the 17th century, but possibly originated in Italy as the Cimabetta . A very common cookie for travelers, they were probably brought to America and that was when cookies were introduced in the USA for the first time. The English Huswife by Gervase Markham was published in the year 1615, and contained 2 Jumble Cookies recipes in the book. The English, Scotch, and Dutch immigrants originally brought the first cookies to the United States. Their simple butter cookies strongly resemble the English tea-cakes and the Scotch shortbread.

10. In the 1796 cookbook,   American Cookery: or, The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Puff-pastes, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and all kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake  by Amelia Simmons , she includes two recipes for cookies.  One simply called “Cookies” and the other called “ Christmas Cookey.”  This was also the first cookbook authored by an American and published in the United States.

11. There are hundreds upon hundreds of cookie recipes in the United States.  The geographic development of the United States was reflected in popular cookie recipes.  The railroad’s expansion in the early 1800s gave cooks access to coconuts from the South.   Later in the century, oranges from the West were included in many recipes.  Around the turn of the century, the Kellogg brothers in Michigan invented cornflakes and cookies were made with cereal products.

12. The Evolution & Variety of Cookies Anzac Biscuit  – This is an Australian army biscuit, also known as an  Anzac Wafer  or an  Anzac Tile .  They are essentially a hardtack biscuit with a long shelf-life and a substitute for bread.  The biscuits are very hard, and soldiers preferred to grind them up and use them as porridge.  Today, they are known as Australia’s National Biscuit. The recipe for these biscuits can be traced back to Scotland  during the Scottish immigration to Australia and New Zealand in the early 1800s. Animal Crackers or Animal Cookies   -- In total there have been 37 different varieties of animal crackers since 1902.  The current 17 varieties of crackers are tigers, cougars, camels, rhinoceros, kangaroos, hippopotami, bison, lions, hyenas, zebras, elephants, sheep, bears, gorillas, monkeys, seals, and giraffes.  There are 22 crackers per box. Animal Crackers became such a part of American life that Christopher Morley (1890-1957), American humorist, playwright, poet, essayist, and editor, wrote a poem.

13. Biscotti/Biscuit – In Italian, biscotti means, “twice cooked .” One of the earliest records dates biscuits back to second century Rome.  Biscuit comes from the Latin word ‘bis coctum’ which means, ‘twice baked’. Back then, ‘biscuits’ were unleavened, hard, thin wafers, which had a low water content.  As they contained very little moisture they were the ideal food to store, as they wouldn’t become moldy quickly. Brownies  – A chocolate bar cookie.  The name comes from the deep-brown color of the cookie. The origins of the chocolate brownies is uncertain but it is felt that it was probably created by accident, the result of a forgetful cook neglecting to add baking powder to chocolate cake batter.  Sears, Roebuck catalog in 1897 published the first known recipe for the brownies, and it quickly became very popular.

14. Chocolate Chip Cookie  – Today the chocolate chip cookie remains a favorite choice among cookie connoisseurs.   The first chocolate chip cookies was invented in 1937 by Ruth Graves Wakefield (1905-1977), of Whitman, Massachusetts, who ran the Toll House Restaurant. Fig Newton  – Fig Newtons were locally produced and handmade product until a Philadelphia baker and fig lover,  Charles Roser, invented and then patented a machine in 1891 which inserted fig paste into a thick pastry dough .   Cambridgeport, Massachusetts – based Kennedy Biscuit Company purchased the Roser recipe & started mass production. The first Fig Newtons were baked at the F. A. Kennedy Steam Bakery in 1891. The product was named after the city of Newton, Massachusetts, and contrary to popular belief, has nothing to do with Sir Isaac Newton.

15. Fortune Cookie  – A  fortune cookie  is a crisp and sugary cookie  usually made from flour, sugar,  vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune" on which is an  aphorism or a vague prophecy. They most likely originated from cookies made by Japanese immigrants to the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. Hardtack Cookie  – A hard square biscuit or cracker that is made with flour and water only (unleavened and unsalted bread).  Also called pilot biscuit,  pilot bread, sea biscuit, and ship biscuit.  Since it’s very dry, it can be stored for months and sometimes years without refrigeration.   History is not clear when people first began to make hardtack, but it’s quite probable that its history began in prehistory.  Prehistoric people boiled grains; they cooked grains and added vegetables and herbs to the mixture; and sometimes they ground it into a powder, mixed it with water, and dried it on a hot stone.  Six thousand year-old unleavened biscuits have been found in Switzerland.

16. Ladyfingers – Oval-shaped cookies or cakes that are also known around the world as Boudoir biscuits, sponge biscuits, sponge fingers, Naples biscuits, Savoy biscuits ( Savoiardi ) and  Biscuits a la cuiller . Macaroon   - ( mak-uh-ROON ) A small round cookie that has a crisp crust and a soft interior.  It may be made from almonds, though coconut is common in the U.S. They may also be flavored with coffee, chocolate, or spices.

17. Nazareth Sugar Cookie  – Also called Amish Sugar Cookies.   The sturdy sugar cookie is baked in the shape of a Keystone, the state’s symbol . Palmier Cookie  - A cookie made of sheets of puff pastry that are rolled in sugar and folded to resemble palm leaves, then baked until the sugar becomes caramelized.

18. Peanut Butter Cookie  – Hand rolled dough containing peanut butter.  Dough is rolled into a ball and then flattened with the tins of a fork. Pizzelle Cookie  - Pizzelle come from Italy. Pizzelle are also known as Italian wafer cookies and there are various ways which to spell Pizzelle as Piazelle, Piazella ,  Pizzele  and  Pizelle . Pizzelle are the oldest known cookie and originated in the mid-section of Italy.

19. Snickerdoodles  – Traditional snicker doodles are coated with cinnamon sugar before being baked. Cookies as are now known in America were originally brought to the United States by the English, Scottish, and Dutch immigrants. Springerle  Cookie – These have been and still are traditional Christmas cookies in Bavaria and Austria for centuries. Springerle are white, anise-flavored cookies, made from a simple egg-flour-sugar dough.

20. Tuile Cookie - A   tuile  is a baked wafer, French in origin, generally arced in shape, wafer thin, crisp, sweet, or savory, 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 of roof tiles that the arced, baked good most often resembles. Tuiles are commonly added as garnishes to desserts such as panna cotta or used as edible cups for sorbet or ice cream. Tuiles are thin cookies named for and curved like the  Tuiles , or tiles, that line the rooftops of French country homes, particularly those in Provence .  To get a curved shape, Tuiles are usually made on a curved surface, such as a wine bottle or rolling pin. In France, tuile molds are also sold. Tuiles must be curved while they are hot, otherwise they will crack and break. Tuiles can also be left flat after baking. The traditional tuile batter consists of flour, white sugar, melted butter, and  almonds.

21. When you slide the pan into the oven, you are setting off a series of chemical reactions that transform one substance the dough into another; cookies. When the dough reaches 92 degree Fahrenheit, the butter inside melts, causing the dough to start spreading out. Butter is an emulsion or mixture of two substances that don’t want to stay together. In this case; water and fat; along with some dairy solids that help to hold them together. As the butter melts, its trapped water is released. As the cookie gets hotter, the water expand into steam and it pushes against the dough from the inside, trying to escape through the cookie walls.

22. The eggs may have been home to salmonella bacteria. When the dough reaches 136 degree Fahrenheit, they die off. At 144 degree, changes begin in the proteins which come mostly from the eggs in the dough. Eggs are composed of dozens of different kinds of proteins, each sensitive to a different temperature. Proteins in raw egg look like coiled up balls of strings, when they are exposed to heat energy, the protein strings unfold and get tangled up with their neighbors. This linked structure makes the runny egg nearly solid, giving substance to squishy dough. Water boils away at 212 degree Fahrenheit, and it starts evaporating so your cookie gets dried out and it stiffens. Cracks spread across its surface. The steam that was bubbling inside the dough evaporates, leaving behind airy pockets that make the cookie light and flaky. Another component is sodium bi-carbonate or baking soda. The sodium bi-carbonate reacts with acids in the dough to create carbon dioxide, which make airy pockets inside your cookies. When the temperature reaches 310 degree Fahrenheit “MAILLARD REACTIONS” start. This reactions result when proteins and sugars break down and re-arrange themselves forming a “Ring like structure“, which reflects light in a way which gives food distinctive rich brown color. As this reaction occurs, it produces a range of aroma and flavor. CARAMELIZATION is the last reaction. When sugar molecules break down under high heat, forming sweet, nutty and slightly bitter flavor compounds that define a good caramel. Caramelization starts at 356 degrees Fahrenheit.

23. Side Effects Of Consuming Cookies: The high calorie content of cookies may increase your body weight and make you obese. The refined flour used in cookies might elevate your blood glucose levels due to its high Glycemic Index. Salted cookies are capable of raising your blood pressure levels. The butter content of cookies may raise your cholesterol levels. Tips To Minimize Side Effects Of Cookies: Replace butter or margarines with healthy oils. Add more nutrient rich ingredients. Reduce the salt usage in the dough.

24. Well, that nearly sums up almost everything about Cookies. Who knew that these small savories which we all love, had such an interesting and exhaustive history ! I would like to thank you all for being patient throughout this presentation. Feel free to get back to me with suggestions and feedback and more brownie pointers on Cookies. Thanks again and have a great day!!