Cookies Vs. Doughnuts Essay, Research Paper

Cookies and doughnuts are both yummy treats, but they also have their advantages and disadvantages. Cookies for instance can be produces with relative ease in any kitchen using flour, water, sugar and eggs. Doughnuts on the other hand are not usually made at home, hence all of the doughnut shops. This is one disadvantage to doughnuts; they are relatively difficult to produce. Doughnuts are made from the same ingredients as cookies, but they also have east in them to give them a more beadlike quality than unleavened cookies.

Cookies are traditionally made by combining the ingredients listed and adding something like chocolate or nuts. The cookies are then baked at around 375 degrees for about eight minutes or until they are golden brown. They are then allowed to cool and then they are served.

Doughnuts are not as simple as coolies. The dough must be prepared using flour, water, eggs, and then another ingredient; yeast, to add the tiny air pockets that make the dough rise and to make them so edible. After the dough has risen, it can be shaped into the familiar ring shape either by rolling it into snake-like portions or, more commonly, spreading the dough thickly over a flat surface using a device not unlike a cookie cutter. The popular doughnut shop, Krispy Kreme ? has developed a doughnut extrusion process that results in their distinctive rosette shape with curved vertical ridges on the sides.

After the dough is shaped, it is cooked using hot oil or fat. This oil is at a much higher temperature than that used to bake cookies. The dough is then cooked to produce a golden-brown crust on the outside while still maintaining a soft core. Sugar may then be applied. This consists of little more than putting sugar and flavoring on the outside of the doughnut in the form of icing, powered sugar, or a glaze which is which is a shell of sugar coating the doughnut. Cake doughnuts are also produced this way using fewer eggs to give them a less airy, more cake-like texture. Adding fruit or nuts to the dough before cooking can change this process, or jelly or custard may be added after cooking through injection.

As plainly illustrated, both cookies and doughnuts are sweet indulgences, using familiar flavoring and additives. They also have striking differences such as the cooling methods, and accepted eating times. For instance, people don’t think twice about eating doughnuts for breakfast, but no one would feed their children cookies at the same time. After dinner, many people think of cookies and milk as an acceptable dessert, but not doughnuts. While the same in many respects, cookies and doughnuts still maintain a myriad of differences the keep them in their own delicious groups.