Which Christmas Cookies Are People Googling In Your State?
Google tracked cookie searches for a week and shared the results.
Christmas cookie season is upon us and Google knows it. The search engine provided USA Today with a roundup of "uniquely searched Christmas cookies" by state.
Here at The Takeout, we are no strangers to the cookie craze. Rather than do the Googling ourselves, though, we just ask readers to submit their recipes directly to our holiday cookie contest. What a time saver that is! For those of you who don't have loyal readers and home bakers you can call upon like we do, Google is probably the first place you check for the holiday cookie recipe you need.
While it is interesting to know what cookies people are searching for the most around the holiday season, I wouldn't take this list at face value. For one, the results only include searches from November 29 to December 6. This time period is when the Christmas festivities are just getting started (unless you're a Christmas fanatic, I guess), so these searches aren't necessarily the best example of people's true Christmas cookie desires. These searches therefore aren't representative of the most "popular" cookies of each state, either. In fact, if people are searching for the recipes, I would say these are more like the most unfamiliar ones to them.
Setting all that aside, though, there were some interesting results from the analysis. "The East coast seemed to favor the internationally inspired cookies in search, while the South seemed to be searching for Christmas flavored treats, and the Midwest was searching for Christmas cookies with alternative ingredients," said Google Trends curator Annanya Raghavan to USA TODAY.
Keto and Gluten-free cookie options were heavily searched in states like Colorado, Iowa, South Dakota, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, and Wisconsin. Christmas cookie ice cream was popular in Southern states such as Texas, Mississippi, and North Carolina.
To see the map and state-by-state results, you can go here.