Both cake and cookie come originally from the German cake word, kokon. That becomes the Dutch koek and little cake, koekje. When koek turns into cake, it gets used everywhere: cupcake, fruitcake, pancake, shortcake. Our little cake, koekje, becomes cookie.
Even our doughnuts are from the Dutch olikoeks, or oil cakes. After landing in America, they get renamed doughnuts because they were just balls of dough, not yet rings.
That older German kokon also became a little cake or küche. That takes a path through French and becomes the savory French quiche.
The Latin torta gives us a bunch of round cakes – from tarts to tortillas to tortellini – and you can read about them here.
- cake
- cookie
- pancake
- fruitcake
- cupcake
- shortcake
- doughnut
- quiche
- tart
- tortilla
- tortellini
the journal of gastroetymology 