Who hasn't stocked a pack of cookies in a desk/desk drawer?
I can't imagine a more popular and appealing little snack than a cookie. It is easy to eat out of the bag, simple and convenient, and has a long shelf life. Sweet and salty, square and round, or wet and soft, or crisp and thin, there are evil heat bombs, and there are dry and hard teething cakes...
Anyway, no matter which bite you have, you can find the right one.
But because of this, the biscuit shelves in supermarkets are a high incidence area of choice phobia. What is the difference between biscuits, cookies, crackers, etc.? Which is crispy, which is crisp, which is low in calories, which tastes good?
In order to make you understand these problems, Penguin Jun has sorted out the common cookies, and the next time you buy and buy, it will be good!
Contents
i. What is the difference between biscuit and cookie?
ii. Cookie Family Inventory
1 | cracker cracker
Soda / Whole Wheat Shortbread
Rice pancakes / pretzels
2 | cookie cookies
Butter shortbread / butter cookie / American cookie
3| waffle waffle
Wafer cake / tile cake
4| macaroon macaroon macaroon
Macaron / Shredded Coconut Cake
5 | biscotti shortbread
Don't think they're synonyms. If you ask the Americans and the British this question, there is a good chance that they will give very different answers.
In the United Kingdom, biscuit is a general term for all biscuits, especially all kinds of sweet biscuits, which can be classified as biscuit. But in the United States, biscuit specifically refers to a quick bread made of butter, flour and leavening agent, which can be combined with bacon, eggs and other ingredients to make a salty side dish, but it is not a biscuit in the strict sense. American biscuit is more common in the southern United States and tastes similar to British scone.
Americans collectively refer to all kinds of sweet cookies as cookies, so for the people of rotten countries, cookies refer specifically to soft and sweet small round biscuits, which are often accompanied by afternoon tea.
Main ingredients: flour, water, salt, some with a small amount of grease or leavening agent
Palate: crisp, hard, and generally salty
Calories: Relatively low
Humans learned thousands of years ago to make flour and water into dough, flattened and dried, pita in the Two Rivers Valley, flatbread in the Nordic region, and matzo in the Jewish pancakes, all of which can be regarded as the ancient prototypes of biscuits. In order to be easy to preserve and carry, people made the dough cakes smaller and drier and harder, which became the original thin crackers.
The simplest crackers are made with only flour and water, sometimes with salt or other seasonings. But today's crackers have developed many categories, and some cookies will add grease to bring a crispy taste, but overall, crackers are still mainly salty, have a lower fat content, and are lower in calories than other biscuits.
[ saltine cracker soda ]
The crackers we're most familiar with are probably sodas. The biggest difference between it and other crackers is that it is fermented with yeast, or baking soda is used as a leavening agent, so that the biscuits produce gas during the baking process and expand moderately, forming a multi-layered crunchy taste. Therefore, soda biscuits will be pricked with small holes before baking, so as not to cause the surface to be too uneven due to gas expansion.
[ Graham cracker whole wheat shortbread ]
As the name suggests, whole wheat shortbread is a thin cracker made from whole wheat flour and is relatively healthy. However, the "digestive biscuits" in supermarkets that advertise "high fiber" and "health", but crisp and fragrant, are not really crackers, generally add a lot of sugar and oil, do not eat it as a healthy snack.
[ rice cracker rice crackers ]
There are crackers made exclusively from rice in Europe and the United States, which is a blessing for gluten allergy sufferers. In addition, snacks such as senbei and pots made from rice can also be classified as crackers. Its taste is generally more crispy than biscuits made from wheat flour.
[ pretzel cracker presalet ]
Pretzel has been in Europe for thousands of years. Essentially, it is actually bread, fermented with yeast, and can be made into various shapes such as butterfly shapes and long strips. But in 17th-century America, an apprentice accidentally overcooked bread and made a hard and crisp "cookie" that tasted surprisingly delicious. Since then, hard pretzels have become popular as a snack.
Many hard cookie bars today have the shadow of pretzels, but most do not use yeast, so the taste is more solid. For example, the Familiar Bailizi Biscuit, whose English name pretz is changed from pretzel.
2| Cookie Cookies
Main ingredients: flour, grease, sugar, partially eggs, milk and leavening agents
Palate: Crispy or fluffy, generally sweet
Calories: High
The cookie is derived from the Dutch word koekje, meaning "little cake", or more precisely, the scraps of the cake. It is said that in the era of no electronic oven, European housewives would drop a small piece of batter into the oven before baking cakes to test the temperature inside the oven. Due to the small portion size, the batter is easily baked dry and crispy, which is the prototype of cookies.
[ Butter Shortbread ]
In an era when there were no leavening agents such as baking powder, the "crisp" of cookies was given purely by butter. Therefore, cookies with a lot of butter will often have a heavenly extreme crispy taste. Scotland's Shortbread, France's Sable, Spain's Povorón are all representatives. However, butter shortbread is quite demanding on the production process and troublesome to transport, so it is still rare in China, and the most widely known butter shortbread is the Scottish brand walker's.
[ Butter Cookies ]
Although the butter shortbread is exquisite in taste and rich in aroma, it is too rustic to play any tricks. Butter cookies can be seen as an evolutionary version of butter shortbread, with a relatively high flour content, so they are less fragile and more suitable for styling. Danish cookies common in China, as well as Jenny cookies that have been very popular recently, are typical representatives of fancy butter cookies.
[ American Cookies ]
Chocolate chip cookies are the most popular cookies in the United States. It's the perfect interpretation of the American spirit: simple, casual, generous, the ingredients and production are simple and crude, but probably few people can resist this sweet bomb of butter, sugar and chocolate.
This kind of cookie is not technically demanding, as long as the material is sufficient, so the most delicious chocolate chip cookies are often handmade by home. Domestic Fun Duoduo is a relatively common brand, but it obviously lacks the homely and simple flavor.
3| waffle waffle
Main ingredients: egg, butter, sugar, flour
Taste: crisp, thin, sweet
Calories: Higher
There's a question about waffles that has stuck me for a long time: What's the difference between a soft waffle muffin and a hard, crispy waffle?
Strictly speaking, hard and crispy waffles belong to one of the waffle categories. Unlike soft waffles, it generally does not use yeast or baking powder as a fluffing agent, but directly stirs it into a batter with egg whites, sugar, butter and flour, pours a layer into the mold, and bakes into crispy flakes. When it first comes out of the oven, it is soft, rolled up while it is hot, and then set after cooling, it is the ice cream cone skin that we are familiar with.
[ wafer wafer cake ]
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Waffles have a long history in Europe, and there are different kinds of waffles in various countries. Among them, the Netherlands has a syrup waffle (stroopwafel), which is sandwiched between two thin biscuits with sweet malt syrup, which is especially suitable for coffee or tea. This biscuit can be seen as the predecessor of today's wafer.
The same is in the thin biscuits to add filling, supermarket sales of wafer cake will add baking soda, ammonium bicarbonate and other as a leavening agent, and the batter does not add sugar oil, so the taste is obviously more loose and crisp, the layer is also richer.
[ tuile tile cake ]
Although the tile cake doesn't have the signature checkered pattern, its recipe is similar to that of waffle shortbread, which is baked into a cracker with butter, flour, sugar and egg white as the main ingredients.
Thinner tile cakes, usually baked with almond slices, coconut paste, etc., can be like a waffle barrel while hot to make a variety of shapes. If you bake it thicker and coat it with white chocolate filling, you are the famous "white lover".
Main ingredients: almond flour, egg white, powdered sugar
Palate: crispy with higher sweetness
Calories: Medium
While today's macaron is a delicate example of French dessert, its predecessor, the macaroon, was actually born in Italy, known locally as amaretti. Its origin is uncertain, but most people believe it was a dessert that Jews ate on Passover at the time. This cookie contains only protein, almond flour and sugar, no flour or yeast, and happens to comply with the Passover dietary ban. At that time, the egg white cake was not delicate at all, and the egg white would directly crack the skin during the baking process, creating rough lines, but it was also a sweet and crispy delicious snack.
[ macaron French macaron ]
In 1533, Princess Catherine Medici of Florence married King Henry II of France and brought the recipe for the macaroon to France. In the 1930s, pierre desfontaines ladurée, a parisian dim sum shopkeeper, made two pieces of meringue into a sandwich, which became the "girl's crispy breast" macaron we see today.
Before roasting, macarons should patiently dry the skin, wait for its crusts and then bake, the inner protein will not break the skin when it is heated and expanded, but will emerge from the lower edge to form a cute little skirt. Such a roasted macaron is crispy on the outside and crispy on the inside, and with a cup of bitter tea or black coffee, it is enough to spend an afternoon.
[ coconut macaroon American macaron / coconut loaf ]
Yes, among the Rugged American desserts, there is also a place for "macarons", generally called American macarons or coconut silk macarons, which can look very different from French macarons. Simply mix the whipped egg white with shredded coconut, powdered sugar, etc., scoop a spoonful of batter directly onto a baking sheet, and bake into a golden crisp cookie. Compared with the French macaron, although the taste is not delicate, it is more chewy, the aroma is more intense, and it has a different flavor.
5| biscotti shortbread
Main ingredients: flour, eggs, a small amount of sugar, will add a variety of nuts or dried fruits
Palate: Dry and hard, suitable for steeping coffee and tea
Most people's impression of biscotti should start with Starbucks. This shortbread is a dough that is baked once, sliced and baked until crisp, the word biscotti means "baked twice" in Italian.
The traditional biscotti is greasy-free and has a drier texture after two roasts, making it suitable for long-distance travelers to carry as dry food. However, this biscuit needs to be good enough to bite, so people often use it with drinks. Dipping one end of the biscuit into coffee or tea, the porous tissue quickly absorbs water, and in one inhale, the aromas of coffee and wheat blend together, which is a very unique taste.
Oh, do you want a small cookie? I'll give it to you tomorrow!
Wen | Ding Xiaosui
Photography |min / Halogen