Did you know that cookies are said to have originated as little test cakes? Bakers would place a small amount of batter in the oven to test the temperature. Remember, ovens didn't always have knobs, dials, or buttons! How blessed we are to benefit from their lack of modern conveniences! And to have those conveniences we when bake our own cookies, of course. Turns out the "test cakes" were tatsty! By the 14th century, cookies were sold by street vendors in Paris. Renaissance cookbooks included recipes for cookies. In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution brought about new technologies that allowed bakers to improve recipes. In early America, the cake section of cookbooks typically included a few recipes for "jumbles" or other types of small cakes that we now call cookies.
I found the following cookie recipe on Wikipedia, pulled from a 1596 European cookbook and thought it was too wonderful not to share!
To make Fine Cakes.- Take fine flowre and good Damaske water you must have no other liqeur but that, then take sweet butter, two or three yolkes of eggs and a good quantity of Suger, and a few cloves, and mace, as your Cookes mouth shall serve him, and a lyttle saffron, and a little Gods good about a spoonful if you put in too much they shall arise, cutte them in squares lyke unto trenchers, and pricke them well, and let your oven be well swept and lay them uppon papers and so set them into the oven. Do not burne them if they be three or foure days olde they bee the better.
So I wish you a happy National Cookie Day! Go by Quiznos and get a free cookie today!
Or better yet, get the kids into the kitchen and bake your own!
As you can see in the picture at left, my daughter loves really gets into making cookies from scratch!
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