COOKIES AND BEVERAGES

PRACTICAL# 5

What are cookies?

Cookies are most commonly baked until crisp or else for just long enough to ensure soft interior.
Other types of cookies are not baked at all, such as varieties of peanut butter cookies that use
solidified chocolate rather than set eggs and wheat gluten as a binder. Cookies are produced in a
wide variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars, spices, chocolate, butter,
peanut butter,

Origin of cookies
The first cookies are thought to be test cakes bakers used to test the oven temperature. They date
back as early as 7th Century A.D. Persia which is now Iran. They were one of the first countries
to grow and harvest sugar cane. With war and exploration eventually sugar was introduced to the
Mediterranean area and European countries and so were cookies. And by the end of the 14th
century, cookies were common place in European cities.

Types of cookies
 Snickerdoodle- Although the origin of this beloved cookie is up for debate, there's no
doubt it's a favorite during the holidays. Snickerdoodles are a type of drop cookie (any
cookie that is formed by dropping spoonfuls of dough directly onto a baking sheet) that is
coated in cinnamon and sugar. They can be crisp or soft, with a slightly cracked surface.

 Chocolate chip cookies- Among the most popular of all cookie types, the chocolate chip
cookie's invention was a happy accident. In 1930, Ruth Graves Wakefield, who ran the
Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, ran out of baker's chocolate and substituted
for it with pieces of Nestle's® semi-sweet chocolate. The rest is history. Chocolate chip
cookies are drop cookies that can be soft and doughy or crisp and crunchy depending on
how long you cook them or what ingredients you use.

 Oatmeal raisin- A seriously underrated cookie, oatmeal raisin is another type of drop
cookie. Its dough is oatmeal based and contains raisins and brown sugar. They're warm
and comforting — a reminder of simpler times and grandma's house.

 Ginger snaps- Also known as ginger nuts or ginger biscuits

 these spicy treats are popular all around the world.
Powdered ginger, cinnamon, molasses, and nutmeg
make this popular holiday cookie the perfect blend
of sweet and spicy.

 Shortbread cookies- Shortbread cookies have a very

high ratio of butter or shortening to flour, hence the name
"short." They differ from butter cookies in that they have lower
Quantities of flour and sugar, giving them a more crumbly and
tender texture.These classic cookies originated in Scotland, and
go all the way back to medieval times.

 A favorite for all the peanut butter lovers, these cookies are made
with hand-rolled dough that is often flattened with a fork to
achieve that familiar waffle pattern. This technique was first
introduced in the 1933 edition of "Pillsbury's Balanced Recipes”
and also helps to distinguish this cookie for those with peanut
allergies.

 Sugar cookies- The sugar cookie is like the vanilla ice cream of
cookies—everyone likes it but few claim it as their favorite.
Basic ingredients like sugar, flour, butter, eggs, and vanilla
make up this popular cookie type. It was first created in
mid-18th century Pennsylvania by the Moravians.
They can be easily be cut into shapes and customized,
leading to their wild popularity, especially during the holidays.

 Butter cookies- Like shortbread cookies, butter cookies have a

high proportion of butter to flour. The difference between the
two is that butter cookies have increased amounts of flour and
sugar, helping them to hold their shape better than shortbread.
Their sturdy texture allows them to be shipped as gifts, and
they're perfect for rolling and cutting into a variety of festive
shapes.

Don’ts when making cookies

  Measuring flour the wrong way is probably the biggest cookie-baking mistake out there.
If you're measuring your flour by scooping your measuring cup into the bag of flour, you
could be using as much as 30 percent extra flour in your dough. That's going to make
your cookies dry and tough.

 Over-work your dough- Overworking can happen with all types of cookie dough, but
especially rolled cookies, where you roll out the dough and then cut out the cookies with
cutters. Flour contains gluten, a protein that gets tougher and harder the more you knead,
roll and mix it. And rolling out cookie dough is fun, especially for kids. But too much
rolling is a no-no.

 Use butter that came straight from the fridge- This relates to the issue of creaming,
because cold butter is more difficult to cream. Thus, if your butter is too cold, your
cookies will be denser, and they will likely not spread enough in the pan when you bake
them. In general, you want your butter to be cool, but not cold.

 Use too soft butter- If your butter is too soft, you'll have the same problem as when you
tried to cream your butter by hand, namely, insufficient aeration. If it's too soft, instead of
holding in the air, the butter will just sort of flop over onto itself, making your dough
heavy instead of fluffy.

 Use stale baking powder- Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent that gives baked
goods their rise, and while it does have a reasonably long shelf life, it isn't unlimited.
After six months in the cupboard, baking powder will lose quite a bit of its potency.
While not as critical in cookies as it is in cakes and quick breads (and perhaps not even as
critical a factor as creaming), it will still make a difference.

 Over grease your cookie sheet- Cookies are supposed to spread when you bake them, as
the butter and sugar melt. But sometimes they can spread so much that they practically
merge into one giant cookie. This can happen for a lot of reasons, but assuming you
followed the recipe in every other way, the most likely cause is greasing the cookie sheet
too much, or in some cases, at all.

 Opening the oven door repeatedly- You need to open the oven door to take the cookies
out, obviously, but you don't want to be doing it every couple of minutes. Every time you
do that, all the heat escapes and the oven temperature drops. This is not as bad for
cookies as it is for cakes, but it's still bad. It can, for instance, prevent your cookies from
spreading, or from browning.

 Didn’t preheat oven- Like many mistakes, it's mostly a matter of forgetting to do it. And
this is especially important with cookies because they might only bake for 10 or 12
minutes, so your oven really needs to be at the right temperature when they go in.
DOs when making cookies
  Measure your flour correctly- Get yourself a digital scale that can be set to grams, and
from now on, for every cup of flour a recipe calls for, weigh out 130 grams.

 Use the specified flour the recipe says.

 Roll or mix your dough as little, and as gently, as you can.

 Cream your butter using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

 Let your butter sit out for 15 minutes, before creaming.

 Make sure your baking powder is no older than six months, and replace it if it is.

 Skip greasing and line your pan with parchment paper instead. Your cookies won't stick,
but they won't spread excessively, either.

 Get in the habit of doing everything the recipe says, including preheating the oven.

 No peeking! Use the window in the oven door to check for doneness.

What are beverages?

Beverages are liquids that can be consumed for various purposes, such as hydration, energy, or
culture. There are many types of beverages, such as water, milk, juice, tea, coffee, soda, beer,
wine, and spirits.

History of different beverages

 Beer- Beer was the first alcoholic beverage known to civilization: however, who drank
the first beer is unknown. Indeed, the first product humans made from grain and water
before learning to make bread was beer. The drink has been a well-established part of
human culture for millennia. For example, 4,000 years ago in Babylon, it was an accepted
practice that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law
with all the mead or beer he could drink.

 Champagne- "As far back as the times of the Emperor Charlemagne, in the ninth century,
Champagne was one of the great regions of Europe, a rich agricultural area that was
famous for its fairs. Today, thanks to a type of sparkling wine to which the region has
given its name, the word Champagne is known worldwide — even if many of those who
know the drink do not know exactly where it comes from."

 Coffee- Culturally, coffee is a major part of Ethiopian and Yemenite history. This
significance dates back as many as 14 centuries, which is when coffee was thought to
have been discovered in Yemen (or Ethiopia, depending on who you ask). Whether
coffee was first used in Ethiopia or Yemen is a topic of debate and each country has its
own myths, legends, and facts about the popular beverage.

 Kool aid- Edwin Perkins was always fascinated by chemistry and enjoyed inventing
things. When his family moved to southwest Nebraska at the turn of the twentieth
century, young Perkins experimented with homemade concoctions in his mother’s
kitchen and created the drink that eventually became Kool-Aid. The forerunner to Kool-
Aid was Fruit Smack, which was sold via mail order in the 1920s. Perkins renamed the
drink Kool-Ade and then Kool-Aid in 1927.

 Milk- Milk-producing mammals were an important part of early agriculture in the world.
Goats were among human's earliest domesticated animals, first adapted in western Asia
from wild forms about 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Cattle were domesticated in the
eastern Sahara by no later than 9,000 years ago. Historians think that at least one primary
reason for this process was to make a source of meat easier to get than by hunting. Using
cows for milk was a by-product of the domestication process.

 Soft drinks- The first marketed soft drinks (non-carbonated) appeared in the seventieth
century. They were made from water and lemon juice sweetened with honey. In 1676, the
Compagnie de Limonadiers of Paris was granted a monopoly for the sale of lemonade
 soft drinks. Vendors would carry tanks of lemonade on their backs and dispensed cups of
the soft drink to thirsty Parisians.

 Tea- The most popular beverage in the world, tea was first drunk under the Chinese
Emperor Shen-Nung around 2737 B.C. An unknown Chinese inventor created the tea
shredder, a small device that shredded tea leaves in preparation for drinking. The tea
shredder used a sharp wheel in the center of a ceramic or wooden pot that would slice the
leaves into thin strips.

Categories of beverages
Beverages can be divided into two main categories: alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Non-alcoholic
beverages include plain drinking water, milk, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, juice, and soft drinks.
Soft drinks come in different varieties, such as chilled, hot, bottled, canned, or open liquids, and
can include aerated waters, mineral water, juices, squashes, syrups, smoothies, and shakes.
Alcoholic beverages contain 1% to 75% liquor and are produced by introducing yeast for
fermentation into substances such as grapes, grains, barley, fruits, sugarcane, and rice. Examples
of alcoholic beverages include wine, champagne, beer, whiskey, brandy, aperitif, digestive,
liqueur, spirits, sake, rice wine, and cocktails.

Sweet and Savory items

PRACTICAL#7
What are sweet items?
Sweet tasting foods are generally interpreted very positively due to the fact that for evolutionary
purposes, most of these foods must be consumed to obtain a sufficient amount of energy.

History of sweet foods

The earliest sweet which people have eaten since prehistoric times was honey. The origins of
confectionery can be traced back to about 2000BC to the ancient Egyptians who made sweets by
combining fruits and nuts with honey. The Romans, Greeks and Chinese made sweets with
sesame seeds. The Aztecs in Mexico used the cocoa bean to make a bitter drink over 3000 years
ago. This drink was sweetened with sugar after 1500 years. In the middle Ages, sugar candies
became very popular. Only the rich could pay for sweet food as the price of sugar was very high.
In that time, rich people ate desserts like preserved, jelly and dried fruit and wafers made from
batter. In the Middle Ages doctors have learn how to mask bad taste of medicines. They have
been mixed them with sugar and from the beginning of the twentieth century many ozenges,
gums and pastiles that served as throat soothers, stomach warmers or healthy energy givers were
made. Eventually, the combination of sugar and cocoa set the confectionery story alight.
Chocolate was drunk in Central America before 500 AD. In 1502, Cortez, the Spanish conqueror
of Mexico, brought cocoa and the chocolate drink back to Spain. The addition of sugar in this
drink made it more palatable, but it took almost another hundred years for the new drink to reach
the rest of Europe. The first shop for selling drinking chocolate was opened in London in 1657.
In the late 17th century the rich began eating chocolate ice cream. Until the 19th century
chocolate was only for drinking not for eating. Joseph Fray made the first chocolate bar in 1847.
Then, in 1875, Henry Nestle and Daniel Peter invented milk chocolate. The candy history and its
development took off in 1800's. Cheaper price of sugar and advancement in mechanization made
easier to mass manufacture the confections and for the first time they were available to all
people. By the 1850s, there were hundreds of confectionery factories in the United States. The
very first sweets included boiled sweets, marshmallows, and one of the very earliest was Turkish
delight. The first candy bar was introduced in Britain by Joseph Fry in 1847. In 1900 Milton S.
Hershey invented Hershey's Milk Chocolate. In the 20th century many new kinds of sweets were
introduced, such as Tablerone (1908), Milky Way ( 1923), Snickers (1930), Mars bar (1932),
Bounty (1951), Twix (1967)...

Types of sweets
  Baked desserts
 Frozen desserts
 Dessert drinks
 Cold desserts
 Fried desserts
 Puddings and custards
 Cobblers

Cold desserts
Cold desserts are not frozen, but they are chilled and stored in the refrigerator and served cold.
The different types of cold desserts include:
 Some types of pies, such as meringue
 Puddings
 Gelatins
 Yogurt
 Cheesecakes
 Custards
 Parfaits
 Mousse
 Fruit salads
 Smoothies
 Slushies
 Some dessert wines
 Some dessert drinks

Frozen desserts
There are many types of frozen desserts, such as:
 Ice cream
 Frozen yogurt
 Sorbet
 Sherbet
 Italian ice (or shaved ice)
 Snow cones
 Popsicles
 Ice cream sandwiches
 Gelato
 Frozen custard
Baked desserts
  Cakes
 Cupcakes
 Cookies
 Pies
 Brownies
 Muffins
 Macarons
 Pastries
 Donuts

Fried desserts
 Donuts
 Pastries

Dessert drinks
 Milk shakes
 Slushies
What are savory foods?
savory food is something full of flavor, delicious and tasty, sometimes used generically to mean
the opposite of sweet or salty. Savory food can have a salty or spicy flavor rather than sweet.

Healthy savory foods

1. Popcorn
Want to eat something hot and salty during the evening? Or you have the habit of getting up in
the middle of the night for your hunger pangs, but since you are health conscious, you can’t go
ahead and have anything or everything. No worries, as popcorn comes to your rescue. Grab a
packet of popcorn, pop it in the cooker and mix it with salt, chili flakes, oregano, or mixed herbs
of your choice. Nowadays, you will get different flavored popcorn packets; you can also get one
for yourself.

2. Roasted Chickpeas
Want to have something savory as well healthy? Then here’s a have an easy solution for your
sudden hunger pangs. Grab a bowl of chickpeas and dry roast them on medium flame; you can
add salt and chili powder as per your taste and viola, your roasted chickpeas are ready! You can
now enjoy your movie nights with this savory yet healthy food to munch on!

3. Mixed Sprouts
Feeling bored to have those sprouts in the same dull way? Well, you can always mix things up a
bit. So, the next time you are going to have the sprouts, mix them up with some chopped onions,
tomatoes, cucumber, and some coriander leaves. Finally, add some salt, chili flakes and squeeze
a bit of lemon in it. Mix it up well and now you are ready to have a tangy and spicy bowl of
sprouts, which are healthy and will give your taste buds a savory flavor.

4. French Fries
Yes, you saw it right, French fries can be deemed as healthy food. All you have to do is, instead
of deep-frying them in a pot of oil, you have to air fry them. The simple yet tricky tip, isn’t it?
So, the next time you are getting savory cravings to have French fries, don’t waste much time
and go for it. You can either have it with some homemade dips or mayonnaise.