Baking From the Heartland: A Tribute to the Great Baking Traditions of the Midwest

Rich with history, heart, and plenty of butter and sugar, Shauna Sever’s new cookbook is a love letter to her Midwestern roots

Belgian pies, a Belgian harvest festival tradition kept alive in Door County, Wisconsin, home to the nation's largest Belgian American community. Paul Strabbing

For food writer and baker Shauna Sever, the Christmas season starts with cookies. Specifically, her Gramma’s heirloom sugar cookies: crispy, sandy, pale golden little discs, roughly flattened with the bottom of a drinking glass and adorned with a shimmer of colored sugars or sprinkles. 

“I grew up having those cookies my entire life,” Sever said. “It’s still the first cookie I make every holiday season, the first week in December.”