The OG cookie queen - Steph, got her baking start as kid while peering over the counter as Mimi, her long time baby sitter taught her the baking basics. Mimi was (& still is!) like a member of the family - together they baked cookies, pies, brownies + more. Some were even entered into the local 4-H competition at the county fair! With Mimi's guidance & expertise, they received blue ribbons for each entry.

Although, Steph didn't know it quite yet - the baking bug had been planted for good!

After college, she started her own baking business by offering wedding cakes, cupcakes, birthday cakes & a full line of desserts to the local community. Eventually, it became too much & she thought she had lost her passion for baking. Stephanie sold the business, swore off baking forever & tried to figure out what came next.

Fast forward a decade or two & Stephanie and her husband, Bill are running a successful restaurant, bar & bakery in Iowa. In 2019, after noticing that their best selling item on the menu was Chocolate Chip Cookies (Busch Light followed in a close second place....because #iowa) Stephanie decided to come up with an entire cookie menu & develop her very own unique concept for a bakery. Except this bakery just sold giant, delicious, ooey, gooey cookies.

At this point in time, Stephanie & Bill were embarking on another bitterly cold, snowy & miserable Midwest winter. The previous year they experienced one of the worst winters in modern history with record snowfall & record cold followed by the worst flooding their small town had ever seen. It even made national news!

This weather put a HUGE damper on their restaurant business & they nearly lost everything.

Hoping to avoid a similar experience in the winter of 2020 - Stephanie wanted to diversify their offerings & decided that cookies was the way to go!

Cookies & Dreams took off like we couldn't have imagined!

Led by a talented group of intelligent women - Cookies & Dreams is growing more rapidly than we could have dreamed.

Our mission is to empower women to follow their dreams, never give up & show up for one another in incredible ways.

We love to give back to our community, empower other women & of course....make cookies!