Upstate New York's Iconic Half-Moon Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Are half moon cookies a New York thing? ›

Half-moon cookies can be traced to Hemstrought's Bakery in Utica, New York, who started baking half-moons around 1925. Half moons are still very popular in Utica, and local media often debates which bakery makes the best half-moons. Half-moons are often frosted higher on one side than the other.

According to “The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets,” the roots of the black and white can be traced to Hemstrought's, a bakery in Utica, New York, which sold something called halfmoon cookies — chocolate drop cakes iced with half vanilla, half chocolate frosting — as early as the 1920s.

While Chompie's and many people around the world call them black and white cookies, it does have other names. In upstate New York and New England, it's commonly referred to as “half-moons.” while the Midwest often calls them “harlequins”. Germany also calls these treats “Amerikaner”.

Key Ingredients

They rise more with shortening and are softer. Since those are critical characteristics of half moon cookies, I stick with shortening. The remaining ingredients are all baking staples, including sugar, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, and flour.

Freshly baked at the city's best coffee shops and bakeries, NYC's most beloved cookies include elegant crinkle wafers, old-school black-and-white rounds and homey, familiar chocolate chips. These aren't just some of New York's finest cookies—they are some of the very best desserts in NYC.

The chocolate chip cookie is far and away America's favorite cookie This should come as no surprise to anyone who enjoys the tasty treat. More than 53% of American adults prefer the cookies over the next most popular kind, peanut butter.

Pizzelles are the oldest known cookie and originated in the mid-section of Italy. They were made many years ago for the “Festival of the Snakes” also known as the “Feast Day of San Domenico”.

For one, Halfmoon cookies are much larger than black and white cookies, making them a more substantial treat. Additionally, the frosting on Halfmoon cookies is thicker and richer, with a more buttery flavor than the fondant icing found on black and white cookies.

In 1920, the very first Halfmoon Cookie recipe was created by Harry B. Hemstrought. He put it together right on Genesee St. in Utica, NY.

In the Southern colonies, every housewife knew how to bake tea cakes that had no extra flavoring except butter and sometimes a couple drops of rose water. The first American cookies that showed up in cook books had creative names like Jumbles, Plunkets and Cry Babies which gave no clue to what was inside the cookie.

What do British people call most cookies? ›

Hard or crisp cookies are called biscuits in the U.K. while the chewier dessert can be identified as a cookie.

'Cookie' as a nickname has a long history. It's often just a name given to the cook, or whoever the duty of cooking falls on. It's also often given to folks that are fragile, 'crack up' easily, or are just sweet in nature. Perhaps it is a name referring to a particular 'cookie incident'.

The Elvis: Peanut Butter, Banana and Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Fresh rice harvested from the happy soils of the Cookie World was used for baking the happy Moon Rabbit Cookie. This Cookie's chubby cheeks are always filled with sweet rice cakes, And while some may think it's cute, her craving for more rice cakes may be one of the strongest forces of the Universe.

If your cookies repeatedly turn out flat, no matter the recipe, chances are your oven is too hot. Here's what's happening. The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.

Known also as Tricolore cookies, Neapolitans, and Venetians, Rainbow Cookies are believed to have been invented in the United States at the turn of the 20th Century as waves of Italian immigrants arrived to the Northeast.

About Crumbl Upper East Side

We also offer in-store and curbside pickup from our locally owned and operated shop. Our cookies are made fresh every day and the weekly rotating menu delivers unique cookie flavors you won't find anywhere else.

The company has more than 240 stores, located throughout the continental U.S. Many stores are located in close proximity to university campuses and cater to students who want to order cookies late at night. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.