9 Pepperidge Farm Cookies Ranked Worst To Best

Few brands have brand recognition and shelf presence like Pepperidge Farm. While the brand sells breads, frozen goods, and the iconic Goldfish cracker, it's also a force to be reckoned with when it comes to its cookie selection. My local Walmart shelves are filled with an impressive Pepperidge Farm-branded lineup of seemingly every cookie underneath the sun, from plush chocolate chip cookies to crispy butter cookies and gingerbread men. Its store prominence is even more impressive when compared to other brands, which may specialize in only one type of cookie, like Biscoff, Chips Ahoy!, and the like. Pepperidge Farm seemingly does it all. But does it do them all justice?

That's exactly the question I set out to answer. I did what any professional food reviewer would do: took a trip to my local Walmart and picked up some of Pepperidge Farm's greatest hits, tried them, and ranked them from worst to best. It should be noted that Pepperidge Farm carries more cookies beyond what's listed here (seriously, how many different types of Milano cookies can there be?), but I wanted to focus on cookies that other brands offered so I could see not only how Pepperidge Farm's selections ranked compared to the taste and texture of one another, but also if they were better options than the other brands I had sampled before. 

Jam thumbprint cookies have a chokehold on me. I have fond memories of eating them as a child, and I always liked the way that they could add dimension to an otherwise plain butter cookie. Obviously, Pepperidge Farm uses the most bottom-shelf jam it could find for its Verona Strawberry cookies. There are no plump pieces of strawberry floating in the center. Instead, it kind of looks like an isomalt windowpane on a cookie — colorful but not effective. 

I tasted both the cookie and the jam center for this review, and, spoiler alert, I was not impressed by either. The outside of the cookie was like a cross between a shortbread and a butter cookie. It was crunchy and short yet lacked the buttery flavor that I was looking for when it comes to a proper shortbread. The jam, as I suspected, was cheap and not super sweet, nor was it strawberry-like. It was like a reduced strawberry Jell-O powder that felt sticky in all the wrong ways.

Even when the jam and cookie are eaten together, it doesn't work. The subtle (and I really mean subtle) fruitiness distracted from the bland cookie, while the buttery consistency prevented my taste buds from paying too much attention to the lackluster jam. If Pepperidge Farm wanted to take this cookie to the next level, it would double the amount of filling in the cookie and swap it out for one that had actual pieces of fruit in it. Although this product may not be a top-seller for the brand anyway, Pepperidge Farm should have given it the care it deserves.

White chocolate macadamia cookies are like the cookies that you begrudgingly take from the dessert plate after the chewy chocolate chip cookies and perfectly baked brownies are long gone. They get the short end of the stick in life, and it's clear that Pepperidge Farm also pushed them to the wayside when it came to product design. The Tahoe cookies walk a thin line between being crispy and soft, which I kind of anticipated, given that there was no clear label on the packaging that clued me in on their texture. The macadamia pieces aren't particularly fresh or noticeable in flavor, and even if I looked at this cookie under a microscope, I doubt I would be able to find the pieces. However, when I flipped the cookies over, I noticed that there were melted, brown patches, which may have been the pieces of chocolate or nut that had gotten a little too toasty. The white chocolate, which the brand advertises as being in big chunks, only came through on two of the 10 bites I had on the single cookie. The flavor is buttery and sweet, but I almost picked up more coconut notes than I did chocolate or nuts. 

If Pepperidge Farm took a good look at these cookies and tweaked its recipe slightly, it could have a real winner on its hands. But these cookies, especially in the face of more well-thought-out options, aren't even ones that I would think twice about when I walk through the aisle at the grocery store. They're about as forgettable as it gets. 

You'd be right to confuse Chessmen with shortbread. They have the same pale color and a neutral flavor. But shortbread tends to be buttery and more acidic, while these Chessmen Butter treats are more like a basic, slightly vanilla-flavored cookie. They're not "short" like shortbread, as they have a more pronounced snap and less rich consistency, and they put sweetness at the forefront. 

I wish that I had more to say about Pepperidge Farm's Chessmen, but as it stands, they're just kind of bland vanilla cookies — like the kind you would put in an 8-year-old's lunchbox to appease their cravings for something sweet. Sure, their design is nice and fitting to the theme, but there's nothing substantial in terms of flavor. In order to make them interesting, I would need to pair them with a dessert dip (like the sweet glaze dip from Auntie Anne's) or a rich melted chocolate, which I shouldn't have to do for a store-bought cookie. A good cookie can hold its own without the need for accoutrements. Even some sort of lemony flavor would have elevated these cookies.

I placed them near, but not on, the bottom of the ranking because their flavor seemed a little more thought out than the Tahoe. So while it feels like someone at the Pepperidge Farm factory said, "How can I make Chessmen as bland as possible?," the blandness also means that you can't really dislike them. Anything multiplied against zero is inherently zero. Checkmate. 

I love a store-bought chocolate chip cookie as much as the next person, but I can say that these Montauk cookies just aren't it. I've had so many chocolate chip cookies over the years that I have very high standards for what I want from them: an adequate number of chips in each cookie, a subtle brown sugar flavor, prominent butteriness, and a freshness that makes me feel like it grew legs and walked out of a bakery case. 

Pepperidge Farm's Montauk cookies are soft-baked. They're so soft-baked that, as I was eating one, I was wondering how many preservatives Pepperidge Farm had to use to keep it at that texture. It wasn't like the pleasant softness you'd get from a bakery-style cookie either; it was that synthetic, overtly cloying flavor that makes you feel like you are eating something mass-produced.

The chocolate in these cookies was plentiful, and I was very happy about that. But in terms of flavor, it was just adequate. The chocolate was very sweet and milky, though it was higher quality than some of the other chocolate chip cookies I've tried in the past. I was missing a clear butteriness and brown sugar flavor, which appeared to be replaced by a synthetic and plasticky overtone. Overall, if these cookies appeared on a sweets platter at a meeting or event, I don't think I could say no to them. But I wouldn't go out of my way to buy a bag from the store.

People who hate oatmeal raisin cookies just have underdeveloped palates. I said it, and I don't regret it. The Santa Cruz cookie base is slightly spicy and rife with cinnamon, while the oatmeal keeps the cookie moist and the fruit adds an extra dose of sweetness. Rather than having massive pieces of raisin in its cookies, Pepperidge Farm cuts its fruit up finely and distributes it more evenly throughout the whole thing. That means the raisin flavor comes through on every bite, and it gives oatmeal raisin cookie haters less of an opportunity to pick out the fruit like they're mining for fool's gold. 

These cookies are soft-baked, though I don't think the oatmeal plays that big of a role in keeping the texture soft. Despite being the same type of cookie as the Montauk in terms of texture, these are less overtly plasticky and artificially soft. Interestingly enough, I also thought that the oatmeal cookies were spicier and more complex in gingery flavor than the actual gingerbread variety I tried (discussed later on), which was as welcome as it was strange.

However, oatmeal raisin cookies don't have universal appeal. I prefer to have larger chunks of raisin in my cookies, as well as larger and flakier oats. But for store-bought oatmeal raisin cookies, these aren't half-bad. I don't love them, but I also don't hate them — earning them a respectable spot in the middle of this sugar-filled list. 

Milano was the first cookie I tried for this ranking because, well, it's what Pepperidge Farm's cookie branding is built on. Sure, other brands can make their own shortbread, chocolate chip, and butter cookies, but no one makes a Milano. 

This signature treat is very plain at first glance. The cookie itself is composed of a vanilla-forward, somewhat shortbread-adjacent base that sandwiches a thin chocolate filling. You might think that this cookie doesn't have enough chocolate on first look, but when you bite into it, you'll find that the balance of the cookie actually isn't bad. Neither the vanilla nor the chocolate flavor takes over. The chocolate has the potential to dominate, but it takes more of a backseat. It strikes me as an excellent cookie to enjoy with tea or coffee; it's not so sweet that it overwhelms the bite, but it has just enough flavor to carry itself. It honestly feels kind of like a black-and-white cookie but in shortbread form in that the chocolate and vanilla have an excellent interplay, which makes this cookie approachable and very pleasant. 

Can the Milano be approachable and exciting at the same time? I doubt it. I tried the milk chocolate variation for this ranking, and I assume that one of the other Milano flavors may have a unique novel twist that would make it more worth eating. While this is a well-executed product, and I will applaud Pepperidge Farm for making it, I can't help but crave something more decadent or complex, especially from a store-bought cookie. 

Shortbread is another underappreciated type of cookie. Despite its simple ingredient list — butter, sugar, vanilla, flour, and salt — it's very difficult to do well. Shortbread cookies should be, as the name suggests, short. The inclusion of butter makes them slightly acidic, too. However, the butter inside of the cookies can also make them taste rancid if they're old. So, yeah, difficult to do well is right. 

These Pepperidge Farm Dublin cookies were short and crumbly in nature (which hides the fact that they don't look very appetizing), though they hold together quite well and aren't as messy to eat as I anticipated. In all honesty, Pepperidge Farm would have been better off if it just made a rectangular cookie in the typical shortbread fashion. But this is not just a beauty contest; there also has to be some substance. And substance this cookie has. The flavor was very buttery and not at all rancid, making them quite pleasant to eat.

Despite how well done this shortbread cookie is, I don't know if it has the same universal appeal as some of the other cookie varieties on this list, including the cookies that ranked lower than it due to their poor flavor. I personally am a really big fan of shortbread, so I have a special spot in my heart for the Dublins, but I don't think that everyone else feels the same. 

Gingerbread is a fantastic cookie. Sure, it's useful as a building material (an edible one, that is) to make a gingerbread house, but the flavor is also really compelling. I was looking for a spicy gingerbread that really drew attention to my senses and made me think twice about the spice. And while I admittedly didn't think the ginger was pungent enough in these (maybe I just have a knack for spice and heat), the structure of the cookies was really well-executed and ultimately won me over. 

The fact that these cookies are so tiny is dangerous; I could eat three of them and not bat an eye. They're about half the size of a standard gingerbread cookie (honestly, they're more like gingerbread elves than anything). Each one is adorned with a coarse sugar coating on top, which is the thing that pushed these cookies up on my list. They're thin and snappy, which makes them much more satisfying than some of Pepperidge Farm's softer options (I'm looking at you, Montauk). The fact that they were crispy was enough, but the extra sprinkle of sugar on top really spoke to me and boosted these in my ranking. 

I could see myself dipping these cookies into a cup of coffee or tea, whether it's Christmastime or at some other point of the year. Gingerbread is such a good cookie, and I'm glad that these Gingerman options are available year-round. More ginger would be nice, but the texture of these cookies is worth the praise. 

I honestly didn't know what to expect when I added the Bordeaux cookies to my cart. They're not butter cookies, chocolate cookies, thumbprint cookies, gingerbread cookies, or, frankly, any cookie I've ever had before. As I came to realize, they're like a crispier, snappier version of a sugar cookie. I suspected that there would be a caramel flavor present, but there were only subtle brown sugar notes that poke through. I was glad that "caramelized" came through more in the snappier texture of these cookies rather than their flavor, as a true caramel flavor would have made them far too sweet and shifted it all way off balance. 

If you're looking for a cookie to pair with a warm cup of tea or a snack to satisfy your sweet treat craving, these are the ones I would unequivocally recommend. While their primary flavor is sweet, Bordeaux are incredibly light and snappy so that you don't get bogged down by their sweetness. Despite this flavor, they're cookies that you can eat one or three of and still feel just as light afterward. 

The only apprehension I have about these Bordeaux Caramelized Crisp cookies is that, even though they're light and snappy on day one, after they've been allowed to sit out and became stale for a few days, they'll have a one-way ticket to the trash. But life is short, so you might as well eat the whole pack in a single sitting — only because they get stale so fast.

I'm a prolific home baker and cookie enthusiast, so I was excited to take on the challenge of trying Pepperidge Farm's most popular cookies. Most of the cookies on this list have also been made by other companies, so I was interested to see how Pepperidge Farm would stack up to other major cookie brands.

As I snacked on each cookie, I considered its flavor, texture, and overall enjoyability compared to other versions I've had in the past, as well as other cookies in the Pepperidge Farm lineup. The top-ranked cookies on this list are ones that I would go out of my way to buy, rather than ones that I would only eat on a cookie plate if it were handed to me. The lowest-ranked cookies were not as well thought out and weren't ones I would pick up during future shopping trips.