National Homemade Cookies Day

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October 1st is National Homemade Cookies Day in the United States.

Cookies, or biscuits as they are known in much of the world, are a baked food that is normally small, round or flat, though there are variations; some cookies are giant. They come in a wide range of varieties, though the basics are typically flour, sugar and some type of oil or fat; the sugar cookie is an example of the most basic type of cookie there is. Cookies are easily purchased from the shops, but there is nothing to say you can't bake them yourself though, and baking at home will spread a lovely smell throughout your house. You can also make a cookie that contains just the ingredients you want.

Cookies can be easy to make, or as complicated as you want them to be. The basic recipe is very simply, but more can be added. If they aren't as perfect as shop-bought, so what?

National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

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August 4th is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day in the United States.

Chocolate chip cookies are drop cookies that have chocolate chips in them. They were created in 1938 when Ruth Graves Whitfield added chopped pieces from a chocolate bar into a cookie. Semi-sweet - a type of dark - chocolate is most commonly used.

At the time, Wakefield owned the Toll House Inn - the chocolate chip cookies were named after the restaurant. It is often said that Wakefield added the chocolate chips to the cookie dough, expecting them to melt, but was surprised when they didn't. However, it is said that this claim that they were accidentally invented is inaccurate; that she intended to try them this way as an experiment.

Today, bags of chocolate chips sold in the U.S. and Canada will normally have a variation of the original recipe printed on them.

National Chocolate Wafer Day

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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 Oreo Cookie Day

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March 6th is National Oreo Cookie Day in the United States.

Needless to say, this is definitely one of the more commercial days around, given that the Oreo is a trademark of Nabisco. The Oreo Biscuit was first introduced by the National Biscuit Company - which later became Nabisco - back in 1912. It was originally launched as an imitation of another cookie produced by a competitor, the Hydrox of Sunshine. Today, it is the best-selling cookie brand in the United States.

The Oreo is classed as a sandwich cookie, as it consists of two wafers with a sweet crème filling. The wafers and filling can vary, but the most commonly recognised design is the two chocolate wafers. The cookie is distinctively decorated on the wafers, although the design has changed over the years. Some varieties of Oreo have even covered in dark or white chocolate. Other varieties have included ones with more filling, ones with thinner wafers, smaller varieties and other flavourings for the cookies and filling. The Oreo is popular with people who have dietary restrictions, such as vegans, as the filling does not use any animal products.

National Cookie Exchange Day

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National Cookie Exchange Day is on December 22nd in the United States.

Yes, this is another holiday related to cookies (or biscuits, in other countries). This time, however, it's a holiday celebrating giving them to others, rather than about a specific type of cookie, and the Christmas season is a season of gift giving. Cookies can be given to others, or exchanged with others; perhaps for different cookies, perhaps for something that isn't a cookie at all.

Cookies are frequently bought pre-made, but they are also one of the easiest dishes to bake. The most basic cookies only contain flour, sugar and a fat, but adding extra ingredients makes them more interesting. In some cases, they don't even need baking at all. So, top make that exchanged cookie mean more, why not make it a homemade one as well?

National Cookie Month

October is National Cookie Month in the United States.

The cookie, which is also known as a biscuit in most countries outside the United States, is a type of, usually sweet although there are some savoury variants, baked item that tends to be small and flat.

The simplest cookie ingredients are just fat, sugar, flour and eggs. This is a rather boring type, and other ingredients are usually added to the mix. Cookies are very flexible, so there are a whole range of different varieties around. Some of the more popular additions to the mix are nuts, fruit - usually dried - and chocolate. Some cookies are also filled.

To cook them, the cookies are normally baked in an oven, but this does not have to be the case, as there are no-bake recipes around. No-bake cookies tend to be made from a binder, which is melted and then mixed with the other ingredients, and then allowed to set afterwards.

National Pecan Cookie Day

National Pecan Cookie Day is on September 21st in the United States.

Like so many nuts, whether culinary nuts or true nuts, pecans can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. Pecans themselves are culinary nuts, not true nuts, as the fruit is a drupe, or a fruit with a single stone or pit that is surrounded by a husk.

The pecan tree is native to Mexico and the United States, and the nut is a common ingredient in dishes from the Southern US.

The pecan cookie, or biscuit in other countries, is a small baked treat, usually flat, made from eggs, flour, sugar and a type of fat, whether butter or cooking oil, with other ingredients perhaps mixed in. In the pecan cookie, the other ingredients are, naturally, pecans, which are a good source of various nutrients, and have a buttery taste.

National Sugar Cookie Day

National Sugar Cookie Day is on July 9th in the United States.

As can be guessed from the name, sugar cookies are a type of cookie - or biscuit, depending on your location.

Sugar cookies are one of the most simple and basic types of cookies around, as they lack the extra ingredients used in other recipes. They could be considered to be the cookie foundation on which all others are created. The ingredients to make them are simply eggs, flour, sugar, butter, vanilla and a raising agent, such as baking powder or baking soda.

One mixed, the cookies can be made into various different shapes. They are popular in the US during the Christmas and Halloween holidays, when they would normally be cut into appropriate shapes. They are simple enough to make at any time of year, though. Although probably in different shapes.

National Gingersnap Day

July 1st is National Gingersnap Day in the United States.

Gingersnaps are a type of cookie, or biscuit, that are also known as ginger nuts and ginger biscuits.

The main flavouring of gingersnaps is, not surprisingly, ginger. Ginger is a spice that comes from the rhizome of the ginger plant. Other spices may also be used in the cookies, such as nutmeg and cinnamon.

There are many different recipes for the biscuits, and there are many regional variations, predominately in the Baltic countries, the US and the countries of the former British Empire. The US variety tend to be drop cookies, and round, but there are other shapes. Round is one of the most common, but Scandinavian varieties, and other Baltic countries, tend to be cut into shapes, and also thin, whilst the US variety is much thicker. US gingersnaps can also have maple syrup added to them.

National Peanut Butter Cookie Day

National Peanut Butter Cookie Day is June 12th in the United States.

This is yet another day celebrating a type of cookie and yet another day celebrating something made using peanut butter (whose creation is credited to US educator George Washington Carver, who was promoting peanuts as an alternative to cotton as a cash crop and had a recipe for peanut butter cookies using chopped or crushed peanuts) - both types of days are rather popular.

This cookie, just as it sounds like, use peanut butter as the primary additional ingredient in the cookie dough.

Peanut butter cookies are usually made with a criss-cross pattern on the top of them. This pattern is created by pressing a fork into the dough before the cookies are baked. The reason why this is done isn't decorative; it was originally done in order to help the cookies cook evenly, but is now a standard part of making the cookies.

National Chocolate Chip Day

May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Day in the United States.

This day does not so much celebrate chocolate chips by themselves, but rather chocolate chip cookies.

In the late 1930s, Ruth Wakefield, the owner of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, created the chocolate chip cookie. This is often said to have been an accidental creation, and Ruth is said to have believed that the chocolate chips would melt into the cookie, but she stated that they were a deliberate creation.

These are cookies with, as it sounds, whole chips of chocolate in them. This can be milk, white or dark chocolate, depending on preference, and cocoa may also be added to the mix making the cookies even more chocolaty. Instead of using baking chocolate in the recipe, which does melt when they are baked, normal chocolate is used. As stated, cookies can be had with different chocolate types in them, but semi-sweet is one of the more common. The chocolate is broken into chips, and added to the mix before baking.

National Oatmeal Cookie Day

National Oatmeal Cookie Day is on April 30th in the United States.

This is a national day celebrating two common items combined, the cookie and oatmeal. It is not celebrating the cocktail of the same name - yes, there is a drink called the Oatmeal Cookie.

Cookies, which are also known as biscuits, are small, flat baked treats. This particular type has oatmeal, which are ground oat groats, added into the mix.

A similar type of item would be flapjack, or oat bars, although flapjacks are not cookies, as they are bars rather than flat biscuits, and they use rolled oats, rather than ground ones.

Other ingredients, such as chocolate chips or raisins, could also be added to the cookie mix if desired. Oatmeal, by itself, is quite healthy, but the health benefits tend to be higher before it is used to make cookies.

National Chinese Almond Cookie Day

National Chinese Almond Cookie Day is on April 9th in the United States.

This is another really, really specific day, and also another day celebrating yet another variety of cookie (or biscuit). Admittedly, there are probably an unlimited number of different ways to cook cookies.

Although these are called Chinese, and there is extensive use of almonds ijn Chinese cuisine, these cookies more than likely originated in the US.

There are different ways of making these cookies, but the easiest way is taking a simple, plain cookie recipe, folding almond extract into the dough, and, when putting the cookie mix onto a tray for baking, pressing an almond into the top of them. The cookies would then be baked as normal; the only difference is the almond and almond flavour.

There is a very similar Turkish cookie called the Acibadem Kurabiyesi.

National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day

March 18th is National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day in the United States.

Yet another day celebrating a type of cookie (or biscuit) and yet another biscuit that uses the ever-popular oatmeal as an ingredient.

Lacy oatmeal cookies contain oatmeal - naturally - which is ground oat groats. Oatmeal is quite a healthy addition to a diet, although generally, in order to receive the full health benefits, it's best not to wrap them around a cookie first! The lacy part of the name comes from the appearance of the finished cookies - they are full of lace-like holes.

These cookies would normally be a type of drop cookie, which are made from a comparatively soft dough, spoonfuls of which are then "dropped" onto the baking tray before they are cooked. In the UK, biscuits of this type are generally the only ones that are referred to as cookies.

National Fig Newton Day

January 16th is National Fig Newton Day in the United States.

Fig Newtons - they are a brand name - are a type of fig roll manufactured by, these days, Nabisco, although originally they were made by the Kennedy Biscuit Company which later merged with the New York Biscuit Company to form Nabisco.

The Fig Newton was invented in the later 19th century. They are, as mentioned, a brand of fig roll, which is a type of biscuit or cookie - or possibly pastry, as they are made from a cake-like dough - that has been filled with fig paste.

At the time of their invention, figs - a fruit native to and popular in an area stretching from the Mediterranean to Asia - were a solution to the physician's prescription of a daily intake of fruit and biscuits to help with digestive problems; such problems were believed at the time to be the root of all illnesses.

Most fig rolls are made in the distinctive shape of the Fig Newton. The biscuit itself is named after the town of Newton, Massachusetts.

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 Pfeffernuesse Day

December 23rd is National Pfeffernuesse Day in the United States.

Pfeffernüsse is a dish you may well not have heard of. They are actually a type of small cookie that are popular in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark during the holidays, which makes late December a perfect time to be celebrating them.

They are not an old dish, probably dating back to the mid 19th century, and they are believed to have been associated with the feast of Sinterklaas earlier in the month - Sinterklaas is a figure based on Saint Nicholas and, as you might guess, one of the sources for Santa Claus.

Pfeffernüsse recipes differ, with no one recipe in particular being specific to the cookie. Spices are contained in all of them, especially anise, cinnamon and cloves, and they are normally sweetened with molasses and honey.

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.

National Cookie Cutter Week

The first week of December is National Cookie Cutter Week in the United States.

Naturally enough, this week celebrates the use of cookie cutters. Cookie cutters, which can also be known as biscuit cutters are a kitchen utensil designed to cut cookie, or biscuit, dough into different shapes, instead of having the more standard circular - or circular-ish, for home made drop cookies - shape. Cookie cutters aren't just used to cut cookies, though; they can also be used to cut sandwiches into different shapes.

Cookie cutters vary in type, and in complexity. The standard type of cookie cutter, and the simplest, cuts a shape out of the dough. The cutter is pressed into dough that has been rolled flat. Another type is a detail cutter, which marks a detail into the surface of the dough. A third type is the mould, which often has a design that is pressed into the surface of the cookies, and can be in the shape of a rolling pin.

There are also the cookie press and the cookie cutting sheet, both of which are used to make larger quantities of cooking. The press extrudes the cookies in ornate shapes, whilst the sheet cuts many cookies at the same time. These last two are less likely to be used in home baking.

December is an ideal month to be celebrating the cookie cutter, for the Christmas period is probably the major celebration for making shaped cookies. Christmas-themed shapes such as snowmen, Santa Claus and reindeer, or, more simply, stars and trees, are popular.

National Spicy Hermit Cookie Day

National Spicy Hermit Cookie Day is on November 15th in the United States.

Hermit cookies are, in general, spiced anyway, so having a spicy hermit cookie is hardly different from a normal one. Spicy in this case means because spices are used in the mixture, not because they are hot.

Hermit cookies, or biscuits, are soft and chewy cookies that date back to the 19th century. The name is believed to come from the fact that the cookies keep well and can therefore be hidden away, rather like a hermit.

To the base cookie mix, spices such as cinnamon, cloves and allspice are added, as well as nuts, usually chopped, and dried fruit. This type of cookie is often made by moulding the mix into a large, flattened loaf, which is then cut into smaller cookies.