Though they have evolved quite a bit since the Mayflower days, cookies have are never out of vogue. Homemade cookies are always head-and-shoulders better than store bought. But let's take a look at cookies then and now before showing you how to re-spin some homey classics.
The cookie that broke the mold
American cookies, like Americans themselves, have been a melting pot of cookie tastes and styles originating with the colonialists and thriving on waves of immigrant culinary contributions. Spice cookies, soft raisin cookies, shortbread, brown sugar-laced oatmeal, molasses and ginger drop cookies were delectably familiar. Our ancestors favored oversized cookies (a must for hungry farm hands) and yesteryear's cookbooks yield countless receipts for traditional delights as Snickerdoodles, raisin-filled Hermits, Sand Tarts, and Jumbles, as well as all sorts of delectable butter cookies such as Southern-style Tea Cakes, and a myriad of sweet delicacies inspired by the Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites, Amish, and Moravian communities. But around the mid-nineteen hundreds something happened and this vast assortment of cookie-dom was supplanted by one infinitely important cookie that broke the mold - Tollhouse.
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