What is not a cookie?

Some people may dissent, but I think cookies have to be shaped before baking, have to be sweet, and almost always have to be made of cookie dough. That leaves a lot of uncookies. I claim that the following are NOT cookies:

• Strudel, biscotti, komish bread, mandelbrot, and other similar things are baked from dough on baking sheets but formed in larger-than-serving-size units before baking and cookiefied only afterwards.
  
• I think the definition of shortbread is open -- it may be made in a perforated sheet and broken up after baking. But commercial shortbread like Walkers appears to be formed, then baked. Maybe yes, maybe no.
  
• Brownies, blondies, and other bars are made from batter (not dough), baked in deeper baking pans, and cut into shape after baking. Bars are not cookies.
  
• Cup cakes and petit fours are baked from batter in small cups or pans. Not cookies.
  
• Technically, Snackwells devils food squares are like petit fours, but everyone thinks they are cookies, so I guess that makes them cookies.
  
• Tiny tartes or tartlets are made from dough but are then baked in little tins. Not cookies.
  
• Doughnuts are fried not baked. AND not cookie dough. So not cookies!
  
• Biscuits, croissants, brioches, bread rolls, dumplings, twinkies, ho-hos, and other pastries are not made from cookie dough. Totally not cookies.
  
• Candy is made from sugar syrup, marzipan, nougat, chocolate or other non-cookie dough materials, though candy sometimes resembles cookies in size, shape, and flavorings.

Candy-like substances may sometimes be used to augment actual cookies made from cookie dough. You could, I suppose, go too far with that. But I guess the Mallomar is still a cookie.


Cookie vs. candy classification may be challenged by something like those sticky balls of nuts, cocoa, graham cracker crumbs, and bourbon or rum that some people make around the Holidays. They probably are not cookies even when edible.

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• No matter what you do with fruit cake you cannot make it into a cookie.
• Crackers are almost always savory or salty rather than sweet. More important: a cracker is often used as a platform for bits of cheese, meat, veggies, or spreads. Cookies are not used that way. A graham cracker is sweet but is eaten with cream cheese, peanut butter, or jam, so it’s not a cookie. No way.
  
• Melba toast, chips, pringles, goldfish, and so forth are not cookies. Obviously.

For an intolerably complete definition of what cookes ARE, see yesterday's post.