Have you started planning your holiday cookie baking yet? 'Tis the season for baking your favorite Christmas cookies to take to cookie exchanges and holiday season festivities (or just for snacking on at home). We all have our classic recipes, but do you know what everyone else's favorite cookies in America are? General Mills wanted to find out, so they took a look at the most visited cookies recipes on BettyCrocker.com, Pillsbury.com and Tablespoon.com and put the results together in this United States map. Crispy, chewy and buttery cookies are all on this list - is your favorite here?
A few notes about this map showing the favorite cookies in America. First, these results are from online recipes across three websites, so they don't take into account all those favorites passed down over the generations (and for the record, clipped from the back of the Nestle Toll House bag counts). Second, the list doesn't take into account variations on each of these recipes. There are, after all, many different ways to make peanut butter cookies, and they're all good. Third, these are holiday cookies, which is why you don't see a basic brownie or chocolate chip cookie on the list.
It is interesting to see American regional favorites among the cookie recipes; it should surprise no one who knows anyone from Ohio that Buckeye Delights are the state's favorite cookie, during the holidays or any other time of the year. And, of course, in New York the Black and White cookie is top of the heap. Results in other states may surprise you. For example, I would never have guessed Russian Tea Cakes as being the holiday favorite in Arkansas or that Connecticut would go all the way in for oatmeal cookies.
Seven states makes a lot of peanut butter cookies, with Betty Crocker's Classic Peanut Butter Blossoms being the top choice in Florida, Pennsylvania, California, Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina and Wyoming.
Christmas Cookie Cutters
Christmas snickerdoodles are popular in Maryland and Minnesota. Some version of sugar cookies are a hit in Alabama, Arizona, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas. Utah takes their sugar cookies in the form of Betty Crocker's Melted Snowman Sugar Cookies.
Maine and Vermont go for peanut butter and chocolate truffles. And while you might think that Hawaii would be all about macadamia nuts and tropical fruit, the most popular cookie there for the holidays is gingerbread. Georgia makes Cream Cheese Pecan Cookies, and Indiana likes Mexican Wedding Cakes.
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