cookies and biscuits

The silly question - difference between cookies and biscuits

@ptrikha_2 (49753)

India

September 6, 2020 8:18am CST

Well at times, we hold things to ourselves thinking that if we ask something, we could look silly. Yet at times, it is best to ask it. So here is a question which could be silly to some people but still a puzzle to me. It is -. What is the difference between cookies and biscuits? Bouquets and brickbats all welcome!!

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13 responses

@NJChicaa (127116)

• United States

6 Sep 20

It depends on where you live. In the United Kingdom they call cookies "biscuits". (the sweet little dessert things) In the US those are called cookies. In the US biscuits are more like individual flaky bread type things that are usually savory. They are very common in the south of the US.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@NJChicaa This is also enlightening.

Just an Ordinary Owl?

@owlwings (43897)

• Cambridge, England

6 Sep 20

I always used to say that "the only silly question is the one you didn't ask!" (Not quite true, but still, it helped a lot when I was teaching people how to use a PC!). I see that you have several good answers already but pictures might help: 1) American 'cookies' are (more or less) English 'biscuits'

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@pumpkinjam (8876)

• United Kingdom

6 Sep 20

@owlwings Just a side note on this one - 'jam' is sometimes 'jelly' in the US. If you asked someone in the UK for a jelly sandwich, they'd think you were bonkers as our jelly is the wobbly stuff that's to be eaten with ice-cream at birthday parties. I believe Americans call that 'gelo'

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Just an Ordinary Owl?

@owlwings (43897)

• Cambridge, England

6 Sep 20

2) This is what Americans call 'biscuits'. Notice that they are usually served with a greyish goo known as 'gravy' (we'll come to that in a bit)!

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Just an Ordinary Owl?

@owlwings (43897)

• Cambridge, England

6 Sep 20

3) These are what we know in England as 'scones' (pronounced either /sconz/ or /scohnz/ depending on where you come from in England and other complex factors. They can have other names as well. Notice that they are remarkably like American 'biscuits', though they are usually eaten with jam and butter or cream; certainly never with a thick, white meat-flavoured sauce!

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@pumpkinjam (8876)

• United Kingdom

6 Sep 20

There are several possible answers to your question! 1. A cookie and a biscuit could be the same thing. In general, the US English 'cookie' is a 'biscuit' in UK English. 2. In the UK, we do have cookies but they are a specific type of biscuit (sometimes softer than other biscuits). 3. In the US (as far as I know), cookies are any type of crunchy semi-sweet treat that we'd call a biscuit in the UK while a US biscuit, from what I've been told/understand, is more like an English scone.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@pumpkinjam This is the most detailed and interesting explanation I got.

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@DianneN (254949)

• United States

6 Sep 20

@NJChicaa is right.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@DianneN Well Pumpkinjam, Owlwings, JJ and more have now given me a lot of enlightenment, and now I can perhaps write a short article on the topic!!

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@Mike197602 (15504)

• United Kingdom

6 Sep 20

Like jj says it varies according to nationality. Here what we call biscuits the US calls cookies...but in the UK we call some biscuits cookies too

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Just an Ordinary Owl?

@owlwings (43897)

• Cambridge, England

6 Sep 20

That's only because there's a leak in the dam that holds back all things American. Unfortunately, it's getting bigger by the day and nobody seems to care - least of all Little Boy Boris!

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@Mike197602 Yeah but in India, I see the direct Bakery ones written as cookies and the more common ones as biscuits. Yet increasingly I see cookies word being used more, though I am more used to the word "Biscuit".

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@marguicha (230334)

• Chile

7 Sep 20

@owlwings In my country we speak Spanish. Yet lately a lot of English words are creeping in. The worst is that people use it and don´t know their meaning.

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@piyushbhatia1 (11695)

• India

6 Sep 20

Try to bake both at home.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@piyushbhatia1 Well our Oven is out of order since many months and we have not been baking things.

@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

7 Sep 20

@piyushbhatia1 Still that would need some modifications.

@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

7 Sep 20

@piyushbhatia1 Hmm.. Clever thinking... in a way!

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@May2k8 (19788)

• Indonesia

6 Sep 20

I think the meaning is very different here, cookies are made with ordinary flour while biscuits are made from bread.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@May2k8 May be, but I was not aware of this.

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@marguicha (230334)

• Chile

6 Sep 20

I´m waitihng eagerly for some answer

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@marguicha Let me propose something. Eat what you find. If the spellings or the styling is American, it is probably a cookie. If English type, then biscuit. If some other kind, well, do not even bother!!

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

7 Sep 20

@marguicha Yeah Bisquit sounds fun!

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@psanasangma (7910)

• India

7 Sep 20

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

7 Sep 20

@psanasangma Any Biscuity or Cookiey observation?

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Valerie J. Routhieaux

@just4him (323168)

• Green Bay, Wisconsin

6 Sep 20

I know in the UK they call cookies biscuits. It took some getting used to that as cookies are cookies and biscuits are a dinner roll. I have no idea what bouquets and brickbats are. Bouquets are a bunch of flowers. If it's something else, I don't know what.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@just4him I have seen Bouquets being referred to positive acclaim, and brickbats for negative opinion or criticism. Well, what I realize that the usage of terms varies and sometimes it is not a very strict categorization.

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@JudyEv (381751)

• Rockingham, Australia

7 Sep 20

I wondered this for ages too but you've been told the difference now. Here, what the Americans call biscuits are very much like what we call 'scones'. Australia says 'biscuits' for cookies.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

7 Sep 20

@JudyEv Yes a lot of information for me. Enough to write a few articles.

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@thelme55 (79311)

• Germany

7 Sep 20

Well, I learned from traveling to England that the cookies I know in my childhood in the Philippines are called biscuits. We have an American English language in the Philippines.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

7 Sep 20

@thelme55 Officially we have an Indian English as well, which is more influenced by Englishmen than the US folks, but the gap has reduced in the recent years.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

8 Sep 20

@thelme55 Not every Indian speaks in a clear accent and regional influences also affect the speech.

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

9 Sep 20

@thelme55 I can understand.

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@Butterfingers (66603)

• India

6 Sep 20

We call it biscuits and those in USA call it cookies

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@ptrikha_2 (49753)

• India

6 Sep 20

@Butterfingers It is not as simple. Many Bakery ones are being sold in markets here as "Cookies". Then we have "Oreo" cookies, "Bourbon" cookies, but we also have some brands with "Bourbon" biscuits.

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