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Chocolate Cookies Aren't Just for Kids!
Long a staple of every kid’s school lunchbox, cookies have evolved into decadent and quite grown up confections. There are a wide variety of cookies and every country seems to have its favorite. But ask any choco-holic and they will tell you that the best cookies are the ones made with chocolate. Melted, drizzled, filled with, enrobed in or dipped in.
Whether it is the
classic chocolate chip cookie
or the comforting and gooey
chewy chocolate chip cookie
or whether it is exotic Italian chocolate biscotti or buttery chocolate shortbread, if it includes chocolate it is definately our kind of cookie.
Lore has it that the first cookies were created by accident. (Don’t most good things seem to be?) Early bakers would put small amounts of their cake batter into the oven to test the oven temperature and called them “little cakes” or “koekje”.
More probably however, the cookie evolved from ancient times. Savory crackers may well have been the first convenience foods: A flour paste, cooked once, then cooked again to dry it thoroughly, became a hard biscuit with an extraordinary shelf life. .For centuries, no ship left port without enough bone-hard, twice-cooked ship's biscuit. The ancient civilizations of the Middle East enriched the cookie and added the sweetness and richness with eggs, butter and cream, fruit, honey and finally-with sugar. With the Muslim invasion of Spain, then the Crusades and the developing spice trade, the cooking techniques and ingredients of Arabia spread into Northern Europe.

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