‘Tis the season for sweets

By Susan Tallant/reporter

Special thanks to Schakolad Chocolate Factory for the chocolate bear and Christmas tree. Schakolad is at 106 E. 4th St. in Sundance Square.  Photo by Patrick Cusack/The Collegian
Special thanks to Schakolad Chocolate Factory for the chocolate bear and Christmas tree. Schakolad is at 106 E. 4th St. in Sundance Square. Photo by Patrick Cusack/The Collegian

Nibble, crunch, chew, gnaw, chomp—all are ways to enjoy the all-American favorite treat—COOKIES.

With Christmas quickly approaching, families will dust off those traditions of gathering to make the treats that grace most family tables or sideboards during the holidays.

Who does not like cookies? With hundreds and hundreds of recipes available, everyone’s taste can be met with a cookie of some sort.

To celebrate the occasion, The Collegian staff gathered cookies and treats from across the metroplex to illustrate the goodies just awaiting the seasoned shopper who would rather buy than bake. All treats await the anti-Betty Crocker consumer or the Martha Stewart wannabe.

Bake ’em or buy ’em—it’s your choice, but meanwhile, the history of the baked treats awaits those seeking such knowledge.

A cookie can be any variety of flour-based sweet cake. Called by several names in various countries, the cookie can be soft or crisp.

The treats, however, date to seventh century Persia, or Iran, and eventually the ingredients used for the cakes spread with the spice traders to Europe.

In America, the first cookbook to mention recipes for all kinds of cakes appeared in the 1796 cookbook, American Cookery. Amelia Simmons included two recipes for cookies, one simply for Cookies and the other for Christmas Cookey.

Today, no one book could hold the thousands of recipes available for the favorite of all treats.

The chocolate chip cookie remains the most popular type of American cookie among cookie connoisseurs.

Ruth Graves Wakefield of Whitman, Mass., ran the Toll House Restaurant where stagecoach passengers ate a meal while horses were changed and a toll was taken for the use of the highway between Boston and New Bedford.

Wakefield’s favorite recipe was for Butter Drop Do cookies, which called for baker’s chocolate. One day she found herself without baker’s chocolate and substituted chopped up pieces of semisweet chocolate.

Believing the chocolate would melt during the cooking process, Wakefield was surprised to find the chunks of chocolate held their shape. She called her new creation the Toll House Crunch Cookie.

The Wakefield family sold the restaurant in 1966, and it burned down in 1984.

Regardless of what sharpens that sweet tooth for you, Christmas treats are abundant.

Happy holidays from The Collegian staff.