Butter, sugar and flour are about all it takes, and National Sugar Cookie Day on Friday, July 9, 2027, honors that plain little treat. Bakers dress it up with icing and sprinkles. Plenty of people like it bare.
The Date for National Sugar Cookie Day
July 9 is the date each year. Nobody gets the day off for it, since it isn’t an official holiday.
From a Dutch Word to a Pennsylvania Quarrel
Nobody has traced who created the food day or when it began, so its own story is a blank. The cookie itself has a paper trail running back to colonial America.
A Dutch word
English and Dutch immigrants carried cookies across the Atlantic in the 1600s. The word itself is Dutch. It comes from koekje, a little cake, and it first showed up in English print in 1703, The Food Timeline records.
Jumbles were common in those early kitchens. These spiced butter cookies show up in the oldest American cookbooks, and bakers still prize them today.
America’s first cookbook
In 1796, Amelia Simmons published American Cookery. She signed herself “An American Orphan.” Her 47-page first edition was the first cookbook by an American printed in the United States.
Simmons swapped the British phrase “small cakes or biscuits” for “cookies,” Smithsonian Magazine points out. She also used pearlash. It was an early chemical leavener, a forerunner of baking soda.
Sales stayed strong for more than 30 years across New England and beyond. Then the book faded, until cooks rediscovered it from the 1950s onward.
The Nazareth cookie
Pennsylvania claims a sugar cookie of its own. German Protestant settlers in Nazareth baked a round, crumbly, buttery version in the mid-1700s, the Clarke Historical Library writes. Settlers in Bethlehem were fond of the cookies too.
That cookie later started a quarrel among state lawmakers. Craig Dally, a state representative, wanted it named the official state cookie. Robert Thompson, a state senator, had pushed a chocolate chip bill since 1998, arguing that Pennsylvania leads the nation in processed chocolate.
Thompson was still pushing five years later, but his bills never got out of committee. Dally had a quick reply for the chocolate camp: “I don’t think they make chocolate chip sugar cookies.”
Why This Plain Cookie Lasts
A sugar cookie asks for very little. A few pantry staples make a soft dough, and it takes any cutter shape you own. Home bakers have leaned on that ease since Simmons’s day.
Each batch also links today’s sprinkled cutouts to colonial jumbles and the Nazareth bakers of the 1700s.
Baking for National Sugar Cookie Day
- Bake a plain batch: butter, sugar, eggs, flour and a splash of vanilla are enough.
- Hold off on tasting the dough: the FDA warns against eating raw dough or batter of any kind.
- Clean up well: wash hands and counters after touching flour or raw eggs.
- Bake a Nazareth-style round: aim for crumbly and buttery instead of crisp.
- Give some away: a plate for a neighbor never goes to waste.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is raw cookie dough risky?
Raw flour can carry E. coli, and raw eggs can carry salmonella. A 2016 outbreak tied to flour led General Mills to recall about 10 million pounds, with illnesses in 20 states.
Can kids use raw dough as play clay?
No. Federal food safety officials advise against it for homemade play clay or ornaments. Baking is the step that kills harmful bacteria.
Did American Cookery earn any honors?
Yes. The Library of Congress put it on its list of 88 Books That Shaped America.
Is store-bought cookie dough ice cream safe?
Commercial products should be made with treated flour and pasteurized eggs, the FDA says.
Sources
- The Food Timeline – Cookies
- Smithsonian Magazine – What America’s First Cookbook Says About Our Country
- Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University – We Said They Were Good
- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – State Cookie Stirs Bitter Controversy
- CBS News – FDA Warns Against Eating Raw Dough Amid E. Coli Fears (2016)