Today, December 4, 2014, is National Cookie Day. In the United States and Canada a cookie is a small, flat, baked treat, usually containing flour, eggs, sugar, and either butter or cooking oil, and often including ingredients such as raisins, oats, or chocolate chips. Most other English-speaking countries would call it a biscuit. Its American name derives from the Dutch word koekje or more precisely its informal, dialect variant koekie which means little cake, and arrived in American English through the Dutch in North America. Cookies appear to have their origins in 7th century AD Persia, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region.
