The Midwest's Best Cookie Recipes

These cookies come with a friendly warning: Chewy caramel, toasted pecans and a flurry of sea salt will make you popular. Very popular. A product called caramel bits gives these cookies great flavor and chewy texture. Some supermarkets carry them, and they're widely available online. (Search for Kraft Caramel Bits.) Take care to follow recipe directions when baking: caramel bits melt quickly.

The light lemon flavor gives these sparkling sugar cookies a little special twist. Judy Kiburz Harrison's recipe won best-in-class at the Iowa State Fair.

Calling all peanut butter fans! These cookies offer double-the-PB compared to the classic peanut blossom cookie with a chocolate kiss on top. And they couldn't be easier.

Sometimes it's fun to have cookies the size of your face—these are 5 inches in diameter! For smaller cookies that are still impressive, use a 1/3-cup measure to portion the dough for 15 or 16 cookies.

In the Middle East, cardamom often flavors coffee. Here, that duo teams up with cloves and chocolate shards in a bakehouse-style cookie with cozy chai vibes. (Trust us: The extra step of melting chocolate, spreading it out and breaking it into shards, rather than use chips, is worth it for a totally elevated cookie.)

The recipe for these sweet and spicy cookies comes from the Warren family in Stanley, Kansas. The gingersnaps are a favorite at family gatherings.

Chopped apple, pecans, apple juice, apple pie spice and more combine for a hearty, delicious cookie. The frosting and nuts add just the right touch of sweetness and crunch on top.

In her book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland, Shauna Sever ramped up the nuttiness and opted for a creamy ganache filling in her take on this Midwest favorite.

Slip yourself one of these insanely rich morsels, which fall somewhere between a truffle and a cookie, on those gray afternoons when only chocolate will do.

Ranger cookies are made with rolled oats and cereal. Judy Kiburz Harrison won best-in-class at the Iowa State Fair for her version, which adds Beer Nuts for a peanutty twist.

Browned butter infuses irresistible nuttiness into these four-ingredient cookies without sullying their essential simplicity or sandy texture. Dip them in satiny chocolate for effortless glamor.

Shauna Sever grew up thinking this beloved recipe was special to her family with its unique additions of vegetable oil, confectioners' sugar and cream of tartar. So you can imagine her bewilderment when she found this exact recipe in a vintage Illinois state cookbook. This recipe is in her book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland as well.

These to-die-for cookies use special chocolate and two kinds of salt, and they call for an overnight chill-and you can absolutely taste the difference. Because of the expense and time involved, we don't recommend them for any old weekend, but they are incredible for a gift or other special occasion. The recipe comes from Chicago chef Mindy Segal's cookbook Cookie Love.

In all our years of testing, we've rarely found a cookie recipe as crazy-simple as this reliable crowd-pleaser. These cookies taste great au naturel--but dipping the bottoms in chocolate adds easy decadence (and looks eye-catching on a cookie tray).

Cinnamon, brown sugar, oats and finely crushed grahams shape this moist cookie made even more irresistible with a thumbprint filling of marshmallow creme and an upside-down milk chocolate candy.

A Hanover, Kansas, reader sent the recipe for these chocolate cookies with peanut butter centers to a Midwest Living® cookie contest. A judge described them as "regally rich chocolate with a peanut butter kick."

This cookie, from the former Lindsay's Chocolate Cafe and Coffee House in O'Fallon, Missouri, wowed us with its flavor-packed lineup of ingredients. "These are the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had! " says one of our website reviewers. "These are wonderful with a glass of cold milk while the cookie is still warm!"

At Sister Pie in Detroit, they make these buttery, buttercream- or ganache-filled sandwich cookies from scraps of dough leftover from making pies. You can do the same, storing them in the freezer until you have enough. Or just make a fresh batch of pastry-it's worth it! The recipe comes from cafe owner Lisa Ludwinski's debut cookbook, Sister Pie.

It's not easy satisfying everyone, but this cookie from the Midwest Living® Test Kitchen tries to meet the challenge! It's packed with oatmeal, chocolate, peanut butter and nuts.

Nothing fancy here; this is the perfectly chewy lunchbox classic, pebbled with walnuts and plump raisins. A combination of vegetable oil and butter ensures a chewy texture and rich flavor. This recipe comes from Patty Pinner's cookbook Sweets (crownpublishing.com).

Here's our version of Bess Truman's coconut cookie recipe from the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. We added the fruit.

A round cookie cutter with scalloped edges makes a nice shape for these cookies, but bell, tree or star cutters would also be good choices for the holidays.

"I love caramel, nuts and chocolate," says the Mandan, North Dakota, reader who sent this recipe to a Midwest Living® cookie contest. Fantasy Chocolate-Caramel Delights were one of the highest-rated cookies in the contest.

Because this recipe makes so many cookies, you might want to freeze some dough for future use. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator for up to one week. Or freeze in a freezer container for up to 6 months; thaw in refrigerator before use.

Sandbakkels means "sand tarts" because the cookies (which, flipped over, can double as tiny shells to hold cream and fruit) have such a fine, crisp texture. Find them in Shauna Sever's book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland.

The secret to perfect lebkuchen is in the resting phase after glazing. An apple wedge in the storage container provides moisture that softens the cookies. This German classic is from Shauna Sever's book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland.

Carol Schneider of Wausau, Wisconsin, brought home a blue ribbon when she entered these cookies at the Wisconsin State Fair. The recipe combines white and semisweet chocolate with dried cherries and walnuts.

Seeds from the Sunflower State star in this crunchy favorite, along with rolled oats and shredded coconut. The recipe is from a Mulberry, Kansas, reader.

We loaded these crisp and chewy chocolate chip cookies with white and chocolate chips along with toasted hazelnuts.

Linda Roberts of Rapid City, South Dakota, tops her buttery cream cheese, coconut-coated cookie with fruit jam. 

What makes these cookies so awesome? "Special ingredients," says the Marion, Ohio, reader who contributed the recipe, which includes chocolate and peanut butter. "I like them because they're decadent yet so easy to make."

Chocolate chips, peanut butter and oatmeal pack these cookies from a Door County, Wisconsin, bed-and-breakfast. Because this recipe makes so many cookies, you might want to freeze some dough for future use. 

Orange and chocolate: a cookie match that tempts everyone to take seconds. This recipe comes from Jill Drury in Milwaukee, who loved to bake cookies with her grandmother. "For the longest time I couldn't decide which cookie I liked best, until one day Grandma had me mix my favorite flavors: chocolate and orange," she says.

Crisp on the outside and fudgy on the inside, these easy drop cookies feature semisweet chocolate pieces as well as peanut butter-flavored pieces. Unsweetened cocoa powder punches up the chocolate flavor.

Many cookies call for just citrus zest, but these soft gems use a lot of juice, too, so they've got the same tart kick as lemon bars. They're a perfect match for hot tea. The recipe comes from The Birchwood Cafe Cookbook (University of Minnesota Press, $29.95).

Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside: This spice cookie has it all. It's a state fair prizewinning recipe from Catherine Blackwood of Columbus, Ohio.

Dried cherries make oatmeal cookies even more memorable in this recipe from American Spoon Foods, which has locations in the Traverse City, Michigan, area. We like the cookies' crisp edges and chewy centers.

Marjorie Johnson of Robbinsdale, Minnesota, won one of her 2,500 state fair ribbons with this recipe. It's also part of her cookbook, The Road to Blue Ribbon Baking.

This tender pastry cookie, a cousin to Jewish rugelach, has Polish origins. In her book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland, Shauna Sever's apricot filling nods to Hungary.

Chicago chef Myk Banas created these utterly delicious and subtly sophisticated cookies.

Patrick Groth, owner-chef of Incredibly Delicious bakery in Springfield, Illinois, uses his grandmother's recipe for these cookies. "Use the best walnuts you have and fresh butter," he advises.

Polvorones are Mexico's crispy, airy answer to shortbread (you may know them as Mexican wedding cookies). Midwest food writer Shauna Sever coats them in cinnamon sugar for a churro-like effect.

The recipe for these big, soft sugar cookies was contributed by Mellissa Deyo, former owner of Jerabek's Bohemian Coffeehouse and Bakery in Saint Paul. "It's my Great-Aunt Hilda's recipe, which has been in my dad's family for 50 years or more," Mellissa says. "It's my favorite!"

A luscious chocolate and pecan mixture swirls throughout these festive cookies.

Great with coffee or as an afternoon snack, these cookies combine the spicy flavors of cinnamon and cardamom, with sliced almonds on top.

This recipe will satisfy chocolate lovers' cravings with semisweet chocolate pieces, unsweetened chocolate, melted white chocolate and melted semisweet chocolate. Just a half a cup of flour goes into this fudgy delight.

These cookies from the Inn at Cedar Falls in Logan, Ohio, make a colorful treat anytime of year.

Irresistible tangy lemon and rich pecans flavor one of the easiest cookies around: buttery shortbread. Serve with a cool dish of ice cream in the summer or a hot cup of tea in winter.