America's 10 Best Cookies Slideshow

Self-taught baker Joanne Chang wanted to recreate the recipes she was never allowed to eat as a child. Her homemade Oreo at Flour Bakery is not only reminiscent of childhood, it surpasses our best memories of the treat. Chang's Oreo is what a good cookie should be — impressive, but in a way that inspires you to recreate an old favorite at home.

If Oprah, David Lebovitz, and Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman aren't enough to convince you of Baked's genius, maybe trying the recipes yourself will. Among many other treats, the whoopie pies are excellent, but it's the chocolate cloud cookies that made the Brooklyn bakery's distant Red Hook neighborhood a cookie capital. The chocolate cloud cookie is a dense, chocolate cookie. It's baked in a traditional way — creaming butter and sugar, adding in eggs and flour — but packed full of fudginess, making it a chocolate lover's dream. And they ship...

Chef Christina Tosi is a star, all thanks to her quirky and surprising inventions at Momofuku's Milk Bar bakery. The Compost cookie a chewy, gooey pile stuffed with pretzels, potato chips, and coffee grounds redefines pastry. Milk Bar will ship you cookies, has already expanded to multiple locations around New York, and with the recent release of Tosi's cookbook, it's not unrealistic to think that the bakery and its cookies may soon reach new corners of the map.

The cookies at Two Tarts in Portland, Ore., may be small, but they have everything a masterful cookie should possess. Each creation resembles a mini sculpture. The chocolate chip-fleur de sel cookie is particularly captivating — the perfect balance of sweet crunch in a single bite. Check out their monthly shipment program.

Bakers Michelle and Vinny at Bleeding Heart Bakery in Chicago do "punk rock pastry." Their bacon-chocolate chip cookie is truly a rock-star cookie, proving that organic, sustainable, or vegan baking can be both edgy and sophisticated. Click here to order online.

Bierberg Bakery is a secret gem hiding in the German Village neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. You have to act fast to take advantage of it, because it's open only three months out of the year, during the holiday season. Traditional cookies like vanilla fingers or lebkuchen painted with images of Saint Nicholas will transport you back to old Europe.

The cookies at Batter Bakery in San Francisco, sold from a small retail kiosk, are made daily. The chocolate mint and shortbread have garnered much attention, and few can nail what makes the Sand Angel so addicting. Even if you can't solve the secret recipe, you can still get your hands on these cookies by mail order across the United States.

Platine's baker and founder Jamie Cantor got her cred at the French Laundry, and the cookies she makes at her bakery in Los Angeles reflect a mastery of artisan pastry. Special cookies such as the Camées, a sophisticated version of a vanilla Oreo, would impress even a jaded pastry connoisseur. Other recipes are more playful, like the signature cookie made of oats, raisins, granola, currants, and chocolate chips. Try them yourself.

Sugar is the kind of bakery that defines Southern comfort. Though getting attention for their classic cakes, the cookies are the secret gems at this Charleston, S.C., bakery. It's hard to imagine a better afternoon than sitting on a porch and enjoying a plate of Sugar's chocolate chip cookies with a glass of lemonade.

William Greenberg is a classic New York bakery on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and their black-and-white cookie sets the standard for a classic New York dessert. For the holidays, black-and-white cookies can be customized to suit the colors of the season, and delivered.