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First Thanksgiving Cookies
Though sweet potatoes, turkeys, and pumpkin pies often crowd the table at modern Thanksgiving dinners, the original Thanksgiving dinner was much different. It is believed that wild fowl, pumpkin, squash, lobster, eel, spinach, dried beans, corn, grapes, and nuts graced the Harvest Festival table of the Wampanoags and Pilgrims. But what about Thanksgiving cookies? Is there any evidence the Pilgrims settled down after their meal with a nice cookie?
Though many historians believe that first Thanksgiving did not include desserts like cakes or pies because the pilgrims lacked ovens and their sugar supplies were running low, there is a distinct possibility that cookies were indeed on that first Thanksgiving menu.
Early Thanksgiving Cookies
Pilgrim cookies, unlike cookies today, were often baked or boiled until they became hard like hardtack, a bland unsweetened cracker. In fact, they were often baked as many as three times to remove all excess moisture, making for a dry, but longer-lasting and easy-to-store cookie.
These cookies could be stored as long as a year, while hardtack could be stored as long as five years. Pilgrim cookies are actually believed to have been brought over on the Mayflower. The pilgrims had no need of an oven or sugar if they could serve last year’s cookies.
Types of Cookies
Pilgrims had two basic cookie types: gingerbread and jumbles. While Americans today may be familiar with gingerbread, jumbles may be a bit less familiar. Jumbles are a cookie made from butter, sugar, flour, flavorings, and eggs –a very basic cookie dough. This dough could then be rolled and cut into different shapes, like a modern refrigerator cookie, it could be made like a drop cookie, or it could be boiled.
Modern Thanksgiving Cookie Traditions
Today, people can include both gingerbread and jumbles in their Thanksgiving cookie traditions if they choose. Gingerbread cookie traditions abound online and in cookbooks, and cutting the cookies out in the shape of turkeys or pumpkins can add an extra bit of Thanksgiving cookie whimsy. Jumble recipes may be a bit harder to find, but they too are available online. Modern jumbles can be made with stir-ins, like dried fruits, bits of candy or chocolate chips, or nuts. Unlike Pilgrim Thanksgiving Cookies, there is no need to bake the cookies three times to get them suitable for long-term storage; these Thanksgiving cookies are likely to disappear as quickly as the Thanksgiving feast itself.
It’s that time again! Time for our Stars Smile Competition! Here’s how to win your box of 1 dozen Smiley Cookies:
Guess whose smiling lips are pictured below then go onto Twitter (www.twitter.com/smileycookie) and answer @SmileyCookie with the #StarSmile hashtag. We’ll pick a random winner and then we’ll send you your prize: 12 delicious SmileyCookies, fresh baked just for you.
Now, without further ado, here’s this weeks Star Smile:
It WAS a cold day in–well, in my household, and visions of chocolate chip cookies wheeled through my mind. And though I am no expert in the ways of all homebaked lovelies, I thought, “How hard can it be?” I sashayed into the kitchen, drummed up a recipe and threw together some dough.
Let’s begin the beguine, said I, and I plunked lots of dough blobs onto a cookie sheet. So what if they were crowded together a mite. How better to encourage warmth than with a bit of coziness, right? Those blobs of dough got so cozy they looked a fluid cross between crowded cow patties and lava flow. I lost valuable time scraping dough off the side of the sheet and from the bottom of the oven, but gained a reasonable facsimile of a sunburn on my left forearm.
The mother of greed is ambition, right? So I stuffed that oven full of sheets, and, frugal little me, even thought to place a sheet directly under the heating element. Ten minutes later, the upper sheet looked as if it had been blasted in the coke furnaces of Hell itself, and the bottommost sheet looked a timidly pasty beige.
Well, two could play at this game, thought I. I removed the travesty of the top sheet. Perhaps the oven was running a bit weird on temperature. I jumped back into the fray, shuffling sheets around, punching up the degree setting a notch or two.
And, so sue me, but I can’t tell the difference between the scent of sugars carmelizing and of dough just beginning to scorch! However, once I located the chisel and hammer, I was back in business. Twenty-two minutes later: voila! I was ready to bake my next batch. [Cookie dough: Three! Hapless baker: Zilch.]
An hour and a half later, a bedraggled but wiser cookie maker greased her pans, observed the recommended spacing of chilled cookie dough on properly cooled sheets, placed said cookie sheets in a preheated oven at appropriate distances from the heating element, and then punched a timer to begin The Watch. Ten minutes later, a blissful ten minutes later, I entered fresh cookie heaven.
Ah… Warm, softly-yielding sweetness, I’m yours!
And, please note: from guilt, from pangs of remorse, from absolute and sheer human goodness, I did save a token cookie for every single other person in our household. You’re welcome.
It’s that time again! Time for our Stars Smile Competition! Here’s how to win your box of 1 dozen Smiley Cookies:
Guess whose smiling lips are pictured below then go onto Twitter (www.twitter.com/smileycookie) and answer @SmileyCookie with the #StarSmile hashtag. We’ll pick a random winner and then we’ll send you your prize: 12 delicious SmileyCookies, fresh baked just for you.
Now, without further ado, here’s this weeks Star Smile:
Teen Earns Seat as Sophomore Class Treasurer with Help from SmileyCookie.com
Evan Schwartz, 15, may not be running for a seat in the senate, or campaigning for congress, but he knows getting voters attention during election season begins with putting a smile on constituents’ faces- 25 dozen to be exact.
Schwartz passed out 300 Smiley Cookies to his classmates during his campaign for sophomore class treasurer at Sherwood High School in Olney, MD, encouraging them to vote. His idea to order from SmileyCookie.com made a bold statement alongside his candy-giving running mates.
“Everyone loved the Smiley Cookies from SmileyCookie.com. I got a great response from my friends and teachers, and people are already talking about my campaign next year,” said Schwartz, who plans to order from SmileyCookie.com again when he runs for Sherwood High School’s Student Government Association as a junior.
Pittsburgh-based Eat’n Park, a family dining restaurant chain with locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, made the Smiley Cookie famous over the last two decades and recently expanded their availability through SmileyCookie.com. The Schwartz family learned about the cookies thanks to visits from relatives in Pittsburgh, who brought Smiley Cookies to family events.
SmileyCookie.com conveniently delivers gourmet Smiley Cookies fast and fresh to all 50 states. A line of cookie gift baskets is available for virtually every occasion, including birthdays, get well, thank you, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day, with cookies taking the shape of jack-o-lanterns, Christmas trees, holiday stars, hearts, shamrocks, and bunnies.
Custom, or personalized, cookies can be ordered in a variety of colors. A dozen Smiley Cookies start out at $11.99, plus shipping. Orders more than $40 receive free shipping, and each gift order is backed by a 100 percent guarantee. All cookies are trans fat-free.
It’s difficult to say if the cookies were pivotal in his win, but this is the second year he has passed out Smiley Cookies and emerged victorious. Last year, Schwartz used Smiley Cookies to campaign for freshman class treasurer. They were so well liked that he ordered twice as many during this year’s run for office.
“Politicians running for government positions in Washington, DC, or Maryland, could take a cue from Evan,” said Robyn Schwartz, Evan’s mother. “When he discovered the same fresh-baked Smiley Cookies available at Eat’n Park restaurants could be ordered online, he thought it would be a great way to get voters’ attention at school.”
It’s that time again! Time for our Stars Smile Competition! Here’s how to win your box of 1 dozen Smiley Cookies:
Guess whose smiling lips are pictured below then go onto Twitter (www.twitter.com/smileycookie) and answer @SmileyCookie with the #StarSmile hashtag. We’ll pick a random winner and then we’ll send you your prize: 12 delicious SmileyCookies, fresh baked just for you.
Now, without further ado, here’s this weeks Star Smile:
It’s that time again! Time for our Stars Smile Competition! Here’s how to win your box of 1 dozen Smiley Cookies:
Guess whose smiling lips are pictured below then go onto Twitter (www.twitter.com/smileycookie) and answer @SmileyCookie with the #StarSmile hashtag. We’ll pick a random winner from those who answered correctly and then we’ll send you your prize: 12 delicious SmileyCookies, fresh baked just for you.
Now, without further ado, here’s this weeks Star Smile:
It’s that time again! Time for our Stars Smile Competition! Here’s how to win your box of 1 dozen Smiley Cookies:
Guess whose smiling lips are pictured below then go onto Twitter (www.twitter.com/smileycookie) and answer @SmileyCookie with the #StarSmile hashtag. We’ll pick a random winner from those who answered correctly and then we’ll send you your prize: 12 delicious SmileyCookies, fresh baked just for you.
Now, without further ado, here’s this weeks Star Smile:
It’s that time again! Time for our Stars Smile Competition! Here’s how to win your box of 1 dozen Smiley Cookies:
Guess whose smiling lips are pictured below then go onto Twitter (www.twitter.com/smileycookie) and answer @SmileyCookie with the #StarSmile hashtag. We’ll pick a random winner from the correct answers, and then we’ll send you your prize: 12 delicious SmileyCookies, fresh baked just for you.
Now, without further ado, here’s this weeks Star Smile:
It’s that time again! Time for our Stars Smile Competition! Here’s how to win your box of 1 dozen Smiley Cookies:
Guess whose smiling lips are pictured below then go onto Twitter (www.twitter.com/smileycookie) and answer @SmileyCookie with the #StarSmile hashtag. We’ll pick a random winner from the correct answers, and then we’ll send you your prize: 12 delicious SmileyCookies, fresh baked just for you.
Now, without further ado, here’s this weeks Star Smile:
