The Busken Bakery on Madison Ave. was hopping Tuesday with customers buying cookies by the box for National Cookie Day. WVXU's Ann Thompson had the "crumby" assignment of finding out what cookies are tops in Cincinnati.
"I like eating them. I like making them," says customer Jim Brady, salivating. "I don't eat them as much as I used to because I shouldn't, but I'm in a bakery right?" In the end, Brady was swayed over by a doughnut.
Close to the noon hour, the Hyde Park Busken Bakery was swarming with customers like Lynn McConnaughey. "My favorite are those chocolate tea cookies, and I'm going to get a pound of those today."
Tea cookies are one of Busken's best sellers, according to the bakery's Kathy Birkofer, as is the happy face cookie.
"It has always been an icon for Busken and is really what people look at," she says.
They also look at cookies with images like Fiona and, ahead of the Crosstown Shootout, UC and XU cookies.
Customer Melissa Essell looks forward to making her own holiday cookies but walked out with a box of tea cookies. "I like sugar cookies, butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies," she says.
Bill Gifford stood at the case like a deer in the headlights. This was his first time back to Cincinnati in more than 30 years.
He used to live across the street from Busken and would get caught up in the aroma of all the bakery goods. "We would be asleep in the middle of the night in that building and would smell things baking and it was so strong it would wake you up!"
Gifford was drawn here Tuesday before his afternoon flight back to Florida.
The National Day Calendar reports cookies arrived in America in the 17th century. At that time, macaroons and gingerbread cookies were the most popular.
