Christmas cookies or Christmas biscuits are traditionally or (though other flavours may be used based on family traditions and individual preferences) cut into various shapes related to Christmas.
History
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
Gingersnap in Sweden, while in Norway
krumkake were popular.
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 . Due to the availability of these utensils, recipes began to appear in cookbooks designed to use them.
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, Star polygon, or .
Popular Christmas cookies
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.
Gingerbread cookies are also traditional in
Alsace.
Bredele
Bredele are Christmas cookies in the
Alsatian cuisine of France.
Chocolate crinkle
Chocolate crinkles are Christmas cookies from Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. The cookie's name is derived from a crackle of its cookie because while baking the dough expands and flattens while the coated powdered sugar cracks, giving it a crinkle effect,
making it resemble a
snowflake.
Thus, the cookie is an icon for a Christmas treat for it reminds one of
winter due to its resemblance of
soil covered with
snow.
Fattigmann
A traditional cookie which dates from the
Middle Ages in Norway,
Fattigmann cookies are deep fried in unsalted fat.
Kerstkransjes
Kerstkransjes are traditional Christmas cookies from
Netherlands. They are round with a hole in the middle. The most usual type uses almond chips as decoration.
Krumkake
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.
Pfeffernüsse
Pfeffernüsse originate in
Scandinavia and date from medieval times when spices were used exclusively in holiday baking.
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.
These are often served with coffee or hot spiced Mexican chocolate.
Sandbakkels
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.
After shaping, they usually have a picture or design pressed into the soft dough with specially carved or presses. After they are baked, the designs are sometimes colored if the intention is to use the cookies as decorations.
Sugar cookies
Also called
Amish sugar cookies or Nazareth sugar cookies, the modern
sugar cookie was created by the
Moravian Church, 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.
See also
