The story behind Christmas cookies
From the classic gingerbread biscuit to a sugar-dusted cutout, the cookie has long been a Christmas staple in countries around the world. But where did the tradition begin?
Cookies — or biscuits — are a beloved treat the world over, with many cultures claiming their own special recipe, especially for the festive season. For thousands of years, winter solstice festivals involved coming together to feast, and as this tradition merged with Christmas celebrations in the Middle Ages, festive biscuits truly took off in Europe. And today, there are numerous takes on the festive cookie. Whether you’re strolling through gingerbread stalls at a Christmas market, hanging home-baked stained-glass cookies on the tree (a custom that originated — with a gingerbread version — in Germany), or leaving out something sugar-dusted for Santa, festive biscuits have become an essential part of celebrating Christmas in countries around the world.
Origins
According to celebrity chef Nick DiGiovanni, the cookie itself can be traced back to seventh-century Persia, shortly after the introduction of sugarcane to the region. “[As] sugar started becoming more available to people, it went from being a luxury to a pretty common treat, and now we all know and love cookies,” he says. Originally made using nuts, these biscuits were much harder and drier than they are today.
“Cookies themselves have changed quite a bit from what they originally looked and tasted like,” DiGiovanni adds. The cookie reached Europe in the early eighth century with the Muslim conquest of Spain and recipes continued to be shaped through the spice trade. By the 1300s, they’d evolved to more closely resemble the sweeter, softer and spicier modern-day versions.
“The story of even the humblest Christmas cookie is a global story,” explains Linda Raedisch, author of The Secret History of Christmas Baking. “They’re not tied to just one holiday.” Cultures worldwide have celebrated the changing seasons with winter solstice festivals for thousands of years, and feasting with loved ones has always been a large part of this. By the Middle Ages, European winter solstice festivals had melded with evolving Christmas celebrations, and as cookies spread through the continent they became particularly popular at this time of year, since they could be made in large batches, stored for long periods and were easy to share.
The great-grandfather of all Christmas cookies is often considered to be gingerbread, which evolved as dried fruits, sugar and spices such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger started appearing in cities throughout Europe. Nuremberg, Germany, which was at the intersection of two major trade routes, is considered its main birthplace, with bakers in the city making soft, chewy, spiced lebkuchen (gingerbread biscuits) as early as the 13th century. The recipe evolved from a spiced honey cake, made with ingredients including almond, orange and sugar, which Jewish traders brought back from the Arab world.
Spices and almonds were expensive and reserved for a few special celebrations, including Christmas, but the evolution of the festive biscuit continued. Other popular Christmas biscuits include powdered-sugar-covered, nutty, buttery Swedish crescents, Russian tea cakes, Italian and Mexican wedding cookies, meltaways and snowballs; these come in so many forms that their exact origin remains a mystery. Similar to gingerbread, these buttery biscuits gradually found their way through many different cultures, picking up dozens of names and local variations along the way. “People all across the world have created twists on such a simple thing, and it's a really fun lens to look at [culture] through,” says DiGiovanni.
In the 1600s, bakers also began lightly glazing cookies with a mixture of sugar and egg whites that looked like ice once it dried, leading to the term ‘icing’. In the early 20th century, cookie cutters became popular in North America after changes to German import laws made them widely available. Along with the invention of royal icing — a hard, smooth concoction made of egg whites and powdered sugar — intricately decorated creations began to appear throughout the 1900s in bakeries across Europe and North America, adding yet more possibilities to what Christmas cookies could look like.
How they’re made
Nuts and a variety of spices are the cornerstones of gingerbread recipes, but there are many regional varieties, from soft and chewy German lebkuchen and thin, crispy gingersnaps to gingerbread houses and gingerbread men. Other important ingredients include honey, orange peel, and in the case of lebkuchen, marzipan — a paste of almonds, sugar and egg whites.
Wafer gingerbread, the most classic kind of lebkuchen, is chewy and nutty, resembling a mix between a cookie and cake, and is baked on top of small thin wafers called oblaten. Nürnberger lebkuchen, or elisenlebkuchen, is the best of the best. “I consider Nürnberger elisenlebkuchen to be the champagne of gingerbread,” Raedisch says. This type of wafer gingerbread is made primarily from ground almonds and hazelnuts with little to no flour and is covered with a thin sugar glaze or with chocolate.
Snowballs or wedding cookies are made primarily of butter, flour, chopped nuts and lots of powdered sugar. They’re soft, crumbly and crunchy and they melt in your mouth.
Where to try Christmas cookies
1. Lebkuchen-Schmidt, Nuremberg
One of the most famous Nuremberg gingerbread bakeries, Lebkuchen-Schmidt began almost 100 years ago and still maintains the strict recipe regulations and traditions of the local lebkuchen bakers’ guild. Experiencing it at Nuremberg’s 500-year-old Christkindlesmarkt is a Christmas tradition for German families, but Lebkuchen-Schmidt also delivers internationally at any time of year.
2. Magnolia Bakery, New York
Cosmopolitan New York City is a fitting place to find international festive treats such as snowballs. Magnolia is one of the city’s most famous bakeries, with multiple locations throughout the city. They’re known for their classic American desserts such as banana pudding and cupcakes, but their holiday menus include staples like cutout sugar cookies, jam thumbprint cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies and pies.
3. Jindrak, Linz
Linzer cookies — also called Linzeraugen, meaning ‘eyes of Linz’ — are iconic Austrian Christmas biscuits that originated in the city of Linz in 1643. They’re a smaller version of a jam-filled, lattice Linzer tart, made from two pieces of almond flour shortbread, one with a circular, star-shaped or heart-shaped cut out, filled with jam and dusted in powdered sugar. Jindrak, a historic bakery in Linz, has been making them for almost 100 years.
