Believe it or not, the 40th annual Tribune Holiday Cookie Contest is right around the corner. In preparation for our favorite competition, the Tribune food team has assembled our favorite spots around the city for a sweet cookie treat.
Everyone has a different cookie preference (mine: chewy and chocolatey), but one thing that we can all agree on is that we can’t wait to indulge this cookie season.
From small pop-ups by home bakers to award-winning pastry chefs, here are some of our favorite places to stop for a cookie. And get your own recipes ready, as the Tribune Cookie Contest launches next week.
— Kayla Samoy, food editor
Batch Bakehouse
Home baker Liz Tierney has created one of the most memorable cookie moments in Chicago. Batch Cookie Company debuted in Bucktown on July 11. Tierney began with Batch Bakehouse, a little free bakery attached to a tree in front of her home, where she gives away a few dozen or so cookies on weekends.
“I thought it would be kind of like a magical, whimsical thing to do,” she said.
And indeed it is, even with my fellow cookie monsters following the honor system of only taking one per person.
Tierney luckily also launched a cottage food bakery business with a bake-to-order menu.
The chocolate chip cookies have become her bestseller; no wonder, as they’re excellent renditions of the crisp-edged and chewy-centered school of the genre, with chopped chocolate bejeweled with salt crystals set against a canvas of nutty brown butter. I highly recommend ordering the jam cookies every time, rotating flavors featuring fruit from local farmers markets, recently swirled homemade Michigan blueberry preserves with a summery tie-dye style throughout the lemon- and sugar-encrusted landscape.
Custom cookies are $18 for six, specialty cookies are $20 for six and orders can be placed via email at tastebatch@gmail.com with details on Instagram for pickup.
“The goal for purchased cookies is to continue to fund the bakehouse,” said Tierney. “So we can keep that joy going in the community.”
— Louisa Kung Liu Chu
Bad Butter
Bad Butter is entirely worth the hype and, in many cases, the long lines that start forming as soon as the shop opens at 8 a.m. I got lucky on a recent rainy Wednesday and slipped in at around 9:15 a.m. to a full pastry case and a stack of sourdough. Bad Butter is known for its bold flavor combinations and rotating selection of nuanced pastries, from things like chocolate sourdough banana bread to ginger plum cruffins to ube caneles. Even though they have plain croissants or the more common chocolate pain suisse, I didn’t expect the only cookie option to be a humble, unassuming milk chocolate cookie ($4). I did, however, expect it to be the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever tasted, judging by the few nibbles of pastries I’d had already from Bad Butter. And it truly was.
“I have my hot take on the chocolate and why I love my cookies so much,” shared Daniel Koester, chef and owner of Bad Butter. “Growing up, we all used the Toll House semi-sweet chocolate, and then if you got a fancy cookie from a pastry chef, it would always have dark chocolate. But the milk chocolate was always overlooked, dare I say looked down on. For me, however, added to a dough with a little extra salt, it makes the perfect cookie.”
Koester said they use a high-quality milk chocolate called Jivara from Valrhona.
The chocolate is balanced and smooth, with subtle flavors of malt and vanilla — it’s so much more than “just” milk chocolate, which I too believe deserves to be revolutionized.
“To me, it’s the most delicious cookie,” Koester said.
— Zareen Syed
1655 W. Cortland St., badbutterchicago.com
Bittersweet Pastry Shop & Café
Bittersweet, which has been making a variety of pastries and desserts since 1992, usually has a couple of cookie options in its little glass dome on top of the pastry case at its West Loop location. My favorite is the sea salt chocolate chip ($3.50) — generously sized with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. When it comes to cookies, I tend to reach mostly for the classics, and this one fits the bill perfectly. It’s sturdy on the outside but chewy and soft as you make your way toward the center, while those scrumptious cracks reveal the shards of dark chocolate inside.
Bittersweet has three locations across the city, with Esther Griego, owner and managing partner, and Katsuji Tanabe, chef and partner, at the helm.
Multiple locations, bittersweetpastry.com
— Z.S.
Brown Sugar Bakery
Sweets entrepreneur Stephanie Hart is best known for her caramel cake, but the baker also has a take on nostalgic Chicago-style cookies. Brown Sugar Bakery was founded in Greater Grand Crossing in 2002. But Hart offers golden lunchroom butter cookies ($4.09 for two) that go back further to a fabled Simeon high school recipe with only four ingredients: butter, sugar, flour and vanilla.
And the signature three-finger press to finish isn’t just for show.
“Those little ridges get toasty,” said Hart. “So the cookie is slightly crisp on the outside, and nice and soft and tender on the inside.”
She also makes chocolate chip cookies ($4.09 for two) — of the thicker, softer and gooier school — loaded with chocolate chips inside and covered with even more on top.
All the cookies are impressively big and one of the best deals in town.
“I’m still on the South Side,” said Hart. “I do want to have something that somebody can come in and grab, get a sweet treat without spending a lot of money.”
— L.K.L.C
328 E. 75th St., 773-570-7676, brownsugarbakerychicago.com
Mindy’s Bakery
Open Wednesdays through Sundays, this Wicker Park spot from James Beard award-winning pastry chef Mindy Segal offers a plethora of baked goods, from bialys and croissants to quiche and cake. The bakery opened in 2022 and was named Bakery of the Year in the Tribune Readers’ Choice Food Awards earlier this year.
“I think that when you walk through my bakery, you can taste the soul of the bakery,” Segal told the Tribune in May.
Cookies here start being baked at 10:30 a.m. My favorites included the loaded chocolate chip ($4.50), an indulgent chocolatey treat that also has a gluten-free version, and the delicately subtle Fields of France tea sugar cookie ($4.50), which had delightful floral notes that stood out even to a chocolate lover. Lines can get long on weekend days, so plan your visit accordingly.
— K.S.
1623 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-489-1747, mindysbakery.com
Rosie’s Cookies
I stumbled upon cookie baker Rosana Zarate, who started her business in 2023 and is based out of the Chicago suburbs, at this summer’s Trinket Fest. The home baker’s cookies were baked exactly to my preference, thick and soft. She recommends heating the cookies up in the microwave for 10 to 15 seconds — and it’s totally worth it.
She offers the classics, like a chocolate chip and red velvet, but also offers playful flavor combinations. The s’mores cookie warms up deliciously, the chocolate and marshmallow getting perfectly gooey, with the graham cracker in the center adding texture to the bite, while the strawberry Nutella cookie has a wonderfully decadent and rich Nutella center. My favorite cookie, though, was the churro cheesecake, with just the right balance of cream cheese and cinnamon.
For now, catch her pop-ups at events like Trinket Fest, where she offers cookies priced at $4 for one, $15 for four, or $22 for 12. Orders can also be placed via Instagram DM, with options for delivery and shipping.
— K.S.
instagram.com/rosiecookiesss and facebook.com/RosieCookiesss
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