Humans have a taste for the sweet things in life and cookies certainly help fulfil that need to sate our so-called sweet tooth. Since we began to use fire and cook our food we have experimented and evolved not only our cuisine and our preparation but also the appetites that help to drive the passion we have for food. One part of this culinary journey is the pursuit of luxurious cakes, pastries and of course cookies.

Cookies are baked, bought, eaten and loved all around the world. Whether they are called cookies or biscuits the sweet, round flat cake baked to perfection and available with a huge list of ingredients and toppings are enjoyed by millions of people every day. The cookie or biscuit has been around for a long time and comes in many different shapes and sizes, colours, textures and flavourings. They can be large or small, round, square, triangular and oblong and some are even rolled, there is a cookie that will suit the taste of everybody whether it may be sweet, sour or even savoury. There are millions baked on a daily basis they may be cooked at home from recipes or on a commercial level in huge bakeries and factories keeping an ongoing supply available for the retailers. They can be found in super markets, corner shops, fuel stations, coffee shops and bakeries all over the country. Some are soft and chewy while others are hard and crunchy, they can be chocolate coated or cream filled, it seems there is almost no limit to the variety of flavours available and all are as delicious as the next one.

Cookies are made in a wide selection of styles, using an assortment of ingredients including butter, chocolate, cream, nuts, dried fruits, oats, spices and sugars just to name some. There are different ways of actually making them and this gives varying styles such as the drop cookies which are made from soft dough that is then dropped in spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and then there are moulded cookies that are made using a stiffer dough mixture that is moulded into cookie shapes by hand before baking. Other types include rolled cookies that are made using dough that is stiffer and then rolled out and cut into various shapes with an implement called cookie cutter. Pressed cookies are made from soft dough that is forced out of a cookie press into various decorative shapes prior to baking and there are bar cookies that are poured or pressed into a pan and after baking are cut into cookie shapes. No matter what the shape of size we love cookies, and will eat them as snacks and even some as main meal replacements. There are certain manufactures that make nutritional cookie style snacks that not only feed our sweet tooth but also are actually full of the vitamins and minerals that are necessary in our daily dietary needs for a healthy life.