Christmas cookie

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Christmas cookies
Christmas-cookies.jpg
A variety of decorated North American style Christmas cookies
TypeSugar biscuits and cookies

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.

Contents

History

Traditional holiday cookie tray Holiday Cookie Tray.jpg
Traditional holiday cookie tray
Modern Canadian and American style Christmas cookies Christmas Cookies2.jpg
Modern Canadian and American style Christmas cookies

Modern Christmas cookies can trace their history to recipes from Medieval Europe biscuits, when many modern ingredients such as cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, almonds and dried fruit were introduced into the west. By the 16th century Christmas biscuits had become popular across Europe, with Lebkuchen being favoured in Germany and pepparkakor in Sweden, while in Norway krumkake were popular. [1]

The earliest examples of Christmas cookies in the United States were brought by the Dutch in the early 17th century. Due to a wide range of cheap imported products from Germany between 1871 and 1906 following a change to importation laws, cookie cutters became available in American markets. These imported cookie cutters often depicted highly stylised images with subjects designed to hang on Christmas trees. Due to the availability of these utensils, recipes began to appear in cookbooks designed to use them. [1] In the early 20th century, U.S. merchants were also importing decorated Lebkuchen cookies from Germany to be used as presents. [2]

In Canada and the United States, since the 1930s, children have left cookies and milk on a table for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, though many people simply consume the cookies themselves. The cookies are often cut into the shape of candy canes, reindeer, holly leaves, Christmas trees, stars, or angels.

Gingerbread

Gingerbread has existed in some form since sugars and spices were brought back to Europe, from soldiers in the Crusades. However, it was not until Queen Victoria and Prince Albert included it with a variety of other German Christmas traditions that the gingerbread cookies became primarily associated with Christmas. [3] Gingerbread cookies are also traditional in Alsace.

Two batches of pfeffernusse: sugar-coated in bowl, cocoa-coated in box. Pfeffernusse cocoa.jpg
Two batches of pfeffernüsse: sugar-coated in bowl, cocoa-coated in box.

Bredele

Bredele are Christmas cookies in Alsatian cuisine of France.

Fattigmann

A traditional cookie which dates from the Middle Ages in Norway, Fattigmann cookies are deep fried in unsalted fat. [4]

Kerstkransjes

Kerstkransjes are traditional Christmas cookies from the Netherlands. They are round with a hole in the middle. The most usual type uses almond chips as decoration.

Krumkake

Five cone shaped krumkaker Krumkaker.JPG
Five cone shaped krumkaker

Krumkaker are traditional cookies from Norway. They were originally baked over open fires using decorative irons; however modern cooks use electric or stovetop irons to bake these wafer-thin biscuits. Krumkaker owe their name, which means "bent cake" or "twisted cake", to the fact that they are wrapped in a cone shape.

Pepparkakor

Pepparkakor are crisp, thin gingersnap biscuits from Sweden, traditionally cut out in flower and heart shapes. [4]

Pfeffernüsse

Pfeffernüsse originate in Scandinavia and date from medieval times when spices were used exclusively in holiday baking. [4]

Repostería

Repostería is a Mexican type of shortbread-like cookie that is lightly baked and dipped into a cinnamon sugar blend until the cinnamon sugar surrounds the cookie. [5] These are often served with coffee or hot spiced Mexican chocolate.

Sandbakkels

Sandbakelse and tins Sandbakelse.jpg
Sandbakelse and tins

Sandbakelse are sugar cookies from nineteenth century Norway. The dough is pressed into tins, and then baked in an oven.

Springerle

Springerle have been traditional Christmas cookies in south Germany (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) and Austria for centuries. They are anise-flavored cookies made from an egg-flour-sugar dough. They are usually made in simple shapes, such as rectangles or circles.

A traditional Austrian springerle Springerle with typical foot swabian Fuessle.jpg
A traditional Austrian springerle

After shaping, they usually have a picture or design pressed into the soft dough with specially carved rolling pins or presses. After they are baked, the designs are sometimes colored if the intention is to use the cookies as decorations. [6]

Sugar cookies

Also called Amish sugar cookies or Nazareth sugar cookies, the modern sugar cookie was created by the Moravians, who settled in the Nazareth area from Germany during the mid-18th century. Pennsylvania adopted the Nazareth sugar cookie as the official state cookie in 2001. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span title="German-language text"><i lang="de">Lebkuchen</i></span> German honey-sweetened cake

Lebkuchen, Honigkuchen or Pfefferkuchen are honey-sweetened German cakes, moulded cookies or bar cookies that have become part of Germany's Christmas traditions. They are similar to gingerbread.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gingerbread</span> Spiced dough used for cookies, cakes and breads

Gingerbread refers to a broad category of baked goods, typically flavored with ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon and sweetened with honey, sugar, or molasses. Gingerbread foods vary, ranging from a moist loaf cake to forms nearly as crisp as a ginger snap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch cuisine</span> Culinary traditions of the Netherlands

Dutch cuisine is formed from the cooking traditions and practices of the Netherlands. The country's cuisine is shaped by its location on the fertile Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta at the North Sea, giving rise to fishing, farming, and overseas trade. Due to the availability of water and flat grassland, the Dutch diet contains many dairy products such as butter and cheese. The court of the Burgundian Netherlands enriched the cuisine of the elite in the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th century, so did in the 17th and 18th century colonial trade, when the Dutch ruled the spice trade, played a pivotal role in the global spread of coffee, and started the modern era of chocolate, by developing the Dutch process chocolate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinnamon roll</span> Sweet pastry

A cinnamon roll is a sweet roll commonly served in Northern Europe and North America. In Sweden it is called kanelbulle, in Denmark it is known as kanelsnegl, in Norway it is known as kanelbolle, skillingsbolle, kanelsnurr, or kanel i svingene, in Finland it is known as korvapuusti, in Iceland it is known as kanilsnúður, and in Estonia it is known as kaneelirull. In Austria and Germany, it is called Zimtschnecke. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it is called osie hniezdo/vosí hnízdo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stollen</span> German Christmas bread

Stollen is a fruit bread of nuts, spices, and dried or candied fruit, coated with powdered sugar or icing sugar and often containing marzipan. It is a traditional German Christmas bread. During the Christmas season the cake-like loaves are called Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gingerbread house</span> Model house made of gingerbread

A gingerbread house is a novelty confectionery shaped like a building that is made of cookie dough, cut and baked into appropriate components like walls and roofing. The usual base material is crisp gingerbread, hence the name. Another type of model-making with gingerbread uses a boiled dough that can be moulded like clay to form edible statuettes or other decorations. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biscotti</span> Italian twice-baked almond biscuits

Biscotti is the Italian plural term for any type of biscuit or cookie. However, in English, biscotti is commonly used to refer specifically to cantucci, also known as biscotti di Prato or biscotti etruschi, which are Italian almond biscuits originating in the city of Prato, in Tuscany. These biscuits are twice-baked, oblong-shaped, dry, crunchy, and may be dipped in a drink, traditionally Vin Santo. Smaller biscotti may be known as biscottini or cantuccini. In Italy, the term biscotti encompasses a wide variety of biscuits and cookies of different shapes, sizes, flavours, and fillings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sugar cookie</span> Cookie flavored primarily with sugar

A sugar cookie, or sugar biscuit, is a cookie with the main ingredients being sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, and either baking powder or baking soda. Sugar cookies may be formed by hand, dropped, or rolled and cut into shapes. They may be decorated with additional sugar, icing, sprinkles, or a combination of these. Decorative shapes and figures can be cut into the rolled-out dough using a cookie cutter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ginger snap</span> Biscuit with ginger flavor

A gingersnap, ginger snap, ginger nut, or ginger biscuit is a biscuit flavoured with ginger. Ginger snaps are flavoured with powdered ginger and a variety of other spices, most commonly cinnamon, molasses and clove. There are many recipes. The brittle ginger nut style is a commercial version of the traditional fairings once made for market fairs now represented only by the Cornish fairing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pfeffernüsse</span> German cookie

Pfeffernüsse are small spice cookies, popular as a holiday treat with Germans and ethnic Mennonites in North America. Similar cookies are made in Denmark, and The Netherlands, as well. They are called Pfeffernüsse in German, pepernoten in Dutch, päpanät in Plautdietsch, pfeffernusse or peppernuts in English, and pebernødder in Danish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basler Läckerli</span> Swiss spiced biscuit

The Basler Läckerli is a traditional hard spice biscuit originating from Basel, Switzerland. It is made of honey, hazelnuts, almonds, candied peel, and Kirsch. After baking in a thin layer, the still hot dough is topped with a sugar glaze and cut into rectangular pieces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cookie decorating</span>

Cookie decorating dates back to at least the 14th century when in Switzerland, springerle cookie molds were carved from wood and used to impress Biblical designs into cookies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paprenjak</span> Croatian biscuit

Paprenjak are a traditional biscuit made in Croatia. This peculiar biscuit contains a unique mix of honey and black pepper. The main ingredients are sugar syrup or honey, butter or fat, eggs, nuts, pepper and various spices. Apart from the ingredients, Paprenjak is unique with its mould-pressed motifs used to decorate the biscuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jumble (cookie)</span> Anise-flavored cookie

Jumbles are simple butter cookies made with a basic recipe of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. They can be flavored with vanilla, anise, caraway seed, or other flavoring like almond. They were formerly often made in the form of rings or rolls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berner Haselnusslebkuchen</span> Swiss gingerbread specialty

Berner Haselnusslebkuchen are traditional Christmas cakes (Lebkuchen) from Bern, Switzerland. Made from ground hazelnuts, they are not to be confused with the Berner Honiglebkuchen, another Bernese specialty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qurabiya</span> Shortbread-like cookies found in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire

Qurabiya also ghraybe, ghorayeba, ghoriba, ghribia, ghraïba, gurabija, ghriyyaba, or kourabiedes and numerous other spellings and pronunciations, is a shortbread-type biscuit, usually made with ground almonds. Versions are found in most Arab, Balkan and Ottoman cuisines, with various different forms and recipes. They are similar to polvorones from Andalusia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zimtstern</span> German Christmas cookie

A Zimtstern is a Christmas cookie, originally from Swabia in Southwest Germany, made from foam of whipped egg white, sugar, at least 25% almonds, cinnamon and a maximum of 10% flour. It is most popular in Germany, Switzerland, and Alsace.

References

  1. 1 2 Olver, Lynne. "Food Timeline: Christmas foods". The Food Timeline . Retrieved 2009-12-13.
  2. "Christmas Cookie Tradition". NewEnglandRecipes.org. Retrieved 2012-12-07.
  3. Carey, Mac. "The Tradition of Gingerbread". MyMerryChristmas.com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-14. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
  4. 1 2 3 Dern, Judith H. "Scandinavian Christmas Cookies". All Recipes.com. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
  5. Clamp, Esther. "Reposteria (The Powdery Yummy Cookies) recipe - from the My Family's Best! A Collection of Recipes Family Cookbook". FamilyCookbookProject.com. Retrieved 2010-10-28.
  6. 1 2 "History of Cookies". What's Cooking America. Retrieved 2009-12-13.