National Chocolate Wafer Day

Evan-Amos / CC0

July 3rd is National Chocolate Wafer Day in the United States.

The term chocolate wafer covers a wide variety of different cookies, or biscuits as they are also called. These do, of course, have something in common - they all should contain chocolate and wafers.

Wafers, when it comes to cookies, are very thin, flat, dry and light biscuits, that are also usually sweet. When wafers are used in other cookies, they can be stacked to make a thicker cookie. Chocolate wafers are a variant of these that are often quite light, chocolate-covered, biscuits that are frequently available in a stick form. As such, they are often a popular biscuit for eating with coffee.

Sticks are not the only shape, though. You can also find thin wafers, bars and more traditionally rotund shaped biscuits. One of the most popular chocolate wafer biscuits in the UK is the Kit Kat, which was produced by Rowntree's and later Nestlé, after the latter company purchased the former. An alternative to a chocolate-covered wafer would be one where the chocolate has been sandwiched between two wafers.

National Biscuit Month

September is National Biscuit Month in the United States.

This month is celebrating the American biscuit, rather than the one in British English. In American English, biscuits are a type of small, soft leavened bread with a firm exterior. In British English, biscuits are small, sweet creations that in America are called "cookies," or possibly crackers, a savoury biscuit. In biscuits, the bread is leavened using baking powder, or baking soda, which leads to their alternative name of baking powder biscuits. Cookies originated as a storable version of bread.

A popular dish that originated in the Southern U.S. is biscuits and gravy. This dish consists of an American biscuit covered in a thick gravy - pretty much what it sounds like, unless you are using British English.

National Buttermilk Biscuit Day

May 14th is National Buttermilk Biscuit Day in the United States.

This isn't the British cookie type of biscuit, but the American type of bread biscuit. The buttermilk biscuit is similar to the British scone, or the Scottish bannock, and can be either sweet or savoury, mostly depending on what additions are made and what they are served with, again rather similar to the scone which, although generally eaten as a sweet cake, can also be savoury, especially those with cheese in the recipe.

Buttermilk biscuits are, not surprisingly, made with buttermilk, with flour and either baking powder or baking soda, which are used as leavening agents rather than yeast, being other important ingredients. Buttermilk is, or originally was, the liquid that was left over after churning butter from cream. The type of buttermilk used in this isn't the fermented buttermilk common in many countries. They have a firm crust and a soft interior.

National Shortbread Day

January 5th is National Shortbread Day in the US.

Shortbread, despite the name, is not really bread these days, but a type of biscuit or cookie, although it is "short." The short part of the name comes from the crumbly texture of the finished biscuit.

Shortbread is made from white sugar, butter and flour at its base, although other ingredients are also sometimes used. Originally, shortbread was a type of biscuit bread baked in medieval times. This bread was a bread roll that was twice baked.

Today, shortbread has a practically indelible cultural association with Scotland. Although it is made in the rest of the UK, and similar biscuits are made in some other countries, it is Scottish shortbread that is the best known. Shortbread is eaten throughout the year, but is much more common at Christmas and the New Year (or Hogmanay in Scotland). The biscuits can come in a variety of shapes, with the most common being fingers, rectangular in shape, petticoat tails, which are made from a large circular biscuit cut into wedges, and rounds, which are simply round biscuits.

National Cookie Day

December 4th is National Cookie Day in the United States.

Cookies - which are also known as biscuits (not to be confused with the American bread) - are small baked treats. Outside the US and Canada, the name cookie usually refers only to certain types of biscuit.

Cookies, at their base, are a very simple recipe, involving sugar, eggs, flour and either cooking oil or butter, but they are rarely limited to just those ingredients. Instead, many other ingredients are added to them. Other ingredients include spices, nuts, fruit - especially dried - and chocolate.

They are not always baked, either, as some cookie recipes are no-bake.

Cookies, in one form or another, have been around as long as bread has, but early forms were not sweet, and would not be considered to be a cookie by today's standards. The earliest known form of the modern cookie dates back to 7th century Persia when sugar was added to what had been up until then small, flat, hard bread. The true modern cookie only dates back to the 18th century.

Cookies are actually quite simple to make at home - in theory anyway. Practice can be a little different.