A cookie or biscuit is a baked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat, and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, or nuts.
Pastry refers to a variety of doughs, as well as the sweet and savoury baked goods made from them. These goods are often called pastries as a synecdoche, and the dough may be accordingly called pastry dough for clarity. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
A biscuit, in many English-speaking countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa but not Canada or the US, is a flour-based baked and shaped food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include biscotti, sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, and speculaas.
Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as ingredients such as fats or flavourings.
Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part white sugar, two parts butter and three to four parts plain wheat flour. Shortbread does not contain any leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda. Shortbread is widely associated with Christmas and Hogmanay festivities in Scotland, and some Scottish brands are exported around the world.
The fig roll or fig bar is a biscuit or cookie consisting of a rolled cake or pastry filled with fig paste.
Kuih are bite-sized snack or dessert foods commonly found in Southeast Asia and China. It is a fairly broad term which may include items that would be called cakes, cookies, dumplings, pudding, biscuits, or pastries in English and are usually made from rice or glutinous rice. In China, where the term originates from, kueh or koé (粿) in the Min Nan languages refers to snacks which are typically made from rice but can occasionally be made from other grains such as wheat. The term kuih is widely used in Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore, kueh is used in Singapore and Indonesia, kue is used in Indonesia only, all three refer to sweet or savoury desserts.
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.
Kipferl, kifli, kiflice, or kifle is a traditional yeast bread roll that is rolled and formed into a crescent before baking.
A bear claw is a sweet, yeast-raised pastry, a type of Danish, originating in the United States during the mid-1910s. In Denmark, a bear claw is referred to as a kam. France also has an alternate version of that pastry: patte d'ours, created in 1982 in the Alps. The name bear claw as used for a pastry is first attested in March 1914 by the Geibel German Bakery, located at 915 K Street in downtown Sacramento. The phrase is more common in Western American English, and is included in the U.S. Regional Dialect Survey Results, Question #87, "Do you use the term 'bear claw' for a kind of pastry?"
Banitsa, also transliterated as banica and banitza, is a traditional pastry made in Bulgaria. It is also made in Budjak, where it is known as milina by Ukrainian Bulgarians; North Macedonia; and southeastern Serbia. In southeastern Serbia, it may also be known as gibanica. Banitsa is prepared by layering a mixture of whisked eggs, plain yogurt, and pieces of white brined cheese between filo pastry and then baking it in an oven.
Christmas cookies or Christmas biscuits are traditionally sugar cookies or biscuits cut into various shapes related to Christmas.
Springerle is a type of South German biscuit or cookie with an embossed design made by pressing a mold onto rolled dough and allowing the impression to dry before baking. This preserves the detail of the surface pattern. While historical molds show that springerle were baked for religious holidays and secular occasions throughout the year, they are now most commonly associated with the Christmas season.
A kitchen scraper is a kitchen implement made of metal, plastics, wood, rubber or silicone rubber. In practice, one type of scraper is often interchanged with another or with a spatula for some of the various uses.
Ka'ak or kahqa is the common Arabic word for cake or biscuit, in its various senses, and can refer to several different types of baked goods produced throughout the Arab world and the Near East. The bread, in Middle Eastern countries, is similar to a dry and hardened biscuit and mostly ring-shaped. Similar pastry, called "kue kaak", is also popular in Indonesia.
A palmier, pig's ear, palm heart, or elephant ear is a French pastry in a palm leaf shape or a butterfly shape, sometimes called palm leaves, cœur de France, French hearts, shoe-soles, or glasses, that were invented in the beginning of the 20th century.
Klenät, kleinur, klena, klejne, kleina, kleyna, and fattigmann are all names for angel wings, a fried pastry common in the Nordic countries as well as the rest of Europe and the United States. In nearby countries and Eastern European countries. The name is related to klen, the Swedish term for "weak", but is originally of Low German origin, which may indicate that the pastry was originally German. It is made from flattened dough cut into small trapezoids. A slit is cut in the middle and then one or both ends pulled through the slit to form a "knot". The kleina is then deep-fried in oil or another kind of fat. Subsequently can be sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon.
In the United States, a biscuit is a variety of baked bread with a firm, dry exterior and a soft, crumbly interior. In Canada it sometimes also refers to this or a traditional European biscuit. It is made with baking powder as a leavening agent rather than yeast, and at times is called a baking powder biscuit to differentiate it from other types. Like other forms of bread, a biscuit is often served with butter or other condiments, flavored with other ingredients, or combined with other types of food to make sandwiches or other dishes.
Magenbrot is a small, sweet glazed biscuit that shares many similarities with a gingerbread cookie. The name of the dish directly translates to "stomach-bread" as it is believed to help improve digestion. This recipe first appeared in Swiss cooking books in the late 18 century. It is usually sold in Christmas markets in northern Switzerland and southern Germany. It is known by many names including Honigkuchen, Gewürzkuchen, or Kräuterbrot.
