Who Made the First Cookies?
As you are munching on your favorite type whether it be chocolate chip, sugar, or peanut butter, you probably want to give thanks to those who first invented the glorious creations that are cookies.
Unfortunately, you are not going to be able to thank the people who made the first cookies because they have been gone for quite a long time now. Cookies started in Persia in the seventh century, A.D. Persia was amongst the first countries to engage in the practice of cultivating sugar. Not only did they make cookies, but they also made plenty of other delicious pastries. Therefore, we can credit them with the invention of cookies and many pastries, in general.
The joy of cookies, pastries, and sugar stayed concentrated in nearby areas for awhile. It spread to the Eastern Mediterranean and then later to Northern Europe.
Cookies in Europe
While Europe did not have a role in the original creation of cookies, they did continue to facilitate the production of them in later years. During the Renaissance, cookies became really popular finds in cookbooks. If we look back to 1596 in a recipe book entitled the Goode Huswife's Jewel by Thomas Dawson, we will find one of the earliest examples of a cookie recipe on the records.
The recipe reads as follows:
To make Fine Cakes: Take fine flowre and good Damaske water you must have no other liquer 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 square lyke unto trenchers, and pricke them well, and let your oven be well swept and lay them uppon papers and so set them in the oven. Do not burne them if they be three or foure days olde they bee the better.
Clearly, we have a few individuals to thank for the tasty cookies that we love today.