cookie

A cookie is a small, flat, sweet, baked or cooked food that is usually made with flour, sugar, and oil or fat, sometimes as well as other ingredients such as chocolate chips, nuts, et cetera. Cookies can be mass-produced in factories, baked in bakeries, or homemade. They are often served with beverages such as milk, tea, or coffee. Cookies can be either chewy or crisp; crisp cookies are called biscuits outside the United States and Canada. In the times before temperature controls on ovens were a thing, small disks of dough were used to test them. When the cookies were ready, the oven could be used for cooking whatever was supposed to be for dinner. Undercookies? Add more wood. Overcookies? Add some water. As a bonus, you had a side-dish or (once sugar became readily available) dessert ready to roll.