Cookie Trivia & Fun Cookie Facts!

How much do you know about cookies?

Test your knowledge here with our collection of Trivia and Fun Cookie Facts.

Maybe you want to know more about the origins of Christmas cookies or who really is/was Betty Crocker?

Keep reading you learn more about these fun topics and much more below.

Do you have some fun cookie facts and/or trivia to share with us?

We would love to hear from you so we can add to our growing list of fun cookie facts.

Send us your favorite fun cookie facts and trivia today.

Oreo Super Bowl Commercial - 2013:
The whisper fight that pits the cookie vs. the cream

Cookie Trivia and Fun Cookie Facts

Did you know…

• The first commercial cookie in the U.S. was the Animal Cracker, introduced in 1902.
• The Oreo, the best-selling cookie of the 20th century, was developed and introduced by the American company Nabisco, in 1912.
• The U.S. leads the world as the biggest cookie bakers and eaters, spending more than $550 million annually on Oreos alone.
• The top 10 selling commerical cookies in the U.S. are:
  1. Nabisco Oreo
  2. Nabisco Chips Ahoy
  3. Nabisco Oreo Double Stuff
  4. Pepperidge Farm Milano
  5. Private Label Chocolate Chip
  6. Little Debbie Nutty Bar
  7. Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream
  8. Nabisco Chips Ahoy Chewy
  9. Nabisco Nilla Vanilla Wafers
  10. Private Label Sandwich Cookies
• In 1989, New Mexico named the 'bizcochito' its official state cookie. Bizcochito, derived from the spanish word 'bizcocho' which means biscuit, is a delicious shortbread cookie flavored with anise and topped with cinnamon sugar.
• The U.S. has a National Cookie Cutter Historical Museum located within the Joplin Museum Complex in Joplin, Missouri.
• Early American tinsmiths began making cookie cutters by hand back in the 1700s.
• American cookie jars evolved from British biscuit jars and first appeared on the scene during the Depression in the 1930s when housewives began making more cookies at home, rather than buying them at the bakery, and needed containers for them.

Watch as Todd Wilbur Shows How To Clone an OREO Cookie

Christmas Cookie Trivia and Fun Facts

• Christmas cookies date back to Medieval Europe.
• Dutch and German settlers first introduced cookie cutters to America.
• German gingerbread (lebkuchen) was the first cookie/cake associated with Christmas.
• Animal crackers began as edible ornaments. Nabisco introduced Animal Crackers to the American public in 1902 as a seasonal item and its brightly colored boxes were promoted as Christmas tree ornaments (that's what the string was for!)
• The Wellesley Cookie Exchange, A most famous American cookie exchange, began in 1971 as a way to relieve holiday stress and continues as of this writing.

Oreo Cookies Go Viral:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Facts

• The official state cookie of both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania is the chocolate chip cookie.
• The chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield in 1930 at the Toll House Inn Restaurant in Massachusetts.
• Mrs. Wakefield sold her chocolate chip cookie recipe to Nestle, who began manufacturing chocolate chips in 1939.
• Half of all home baked cookies are chocolate chip.
• The Nabisco Chips Ahoy Chocolate Chip Cookie is the second best selling cookie in the U.S. right behind the Oreo.

Oreo Separator Machine Created By Physicist David Neevel

Girl Scout Cookie Fun Facts

• The Girl Scouts first began selling cookies In the 1920s.
• The first documented council-wide cookie sale of commercially baked Girl Scout Cookies was in Philadelphia in 1934.
• The first nationally franchised cookie sale of Girl Scout Cookies was in 1936.
• Thin Mints are the Girl Scouts' most popular selling cookie, accounting for 25% of sales.

Learn all about Girl Scout Cookies here

Was There A Real Betty Crocker?

You may not believe this, but Betty Crocker never existed. She was created in 1921 by the Washburn-Crosby Company in Minneapolis—a predecessor of General Mills.

The company ran a national puzzle competition and received thousands of entries. Unexpectedly, they were also flooded with pleas for baking advice!

Washburn-Crosby Co. soon realized they needed a uniform and centralized person to respond to all these requests. The name Betty Crocker was chosen to be this person. Crocker was taken from William G. Crocker, the recently retired director of the company. The name Betty was chosen because it sounded cheery and wholesome and also was an extremely popular name in the 1920's.

An artist was commissioned to create a portrait of Betty and came up with the matronly, white, middle-aged woman—her iconic look was established in 1936. Over the next eight decades her “look” would change 7 more times.

Betty Crocker is now considered to be the great melting pot of Modern American Womanhood—which is not too bad for a woman who never existed!

Investigate tips and techniques for how to make perfect cookies, depending on your own unique cookie likes and dislikes.

Watch some fun Cookie Challenge videos.

Back from Cookie Trivia to Best Ever Cookie Collection home

---

---