20 Forgotten Cookies We Want Back

Think back to your favorite childhood treats. What was that one thing in your lunchbox that made you happiest? I’m looking at the sweet treats that people adored and still remember fondly. For many of us, it comes down to forgotten cookies that the manufacturers abandoned. I loved riding my bike to the local general store and spending my allowance on some of my favorite cookies and candies if I wasn’t saving up for the latest album by my favorite singers or bands. Usually, that cookie purchase paired with a Pepsi Light from the cooler — another discontinued product I want back.

How many cookies do Americans consume each year? According to Statista, an estimated 249.71 million Americans had at least one ready-to-eat cookie in 2023. Few people stop at one, however, so you can imagine the size of the packaged cookie industry. According to IBIS World , revenues are strong for many leading cookie manufacturers. The top three U.S. companies making packaged cookies and their 2023 revenues are as follows:

• Campell’s Soup Company (Archway, Goldfish, Lance, Pepperidge Farm, and Stella D’oro products): $643.4 million
• Kellogg (Austin, Carr’s, Kellogg’s Graham Crackers, Pop-Tarts, and Rice Krispies Treats products): $872.7 million
• Mondelez International, Inc. (Cadbury, Lu, Nabisco, and Oreo products): $1.55 billion

I’m looking at cookies my family and friends grew up with and still talk about. Instead of going with recipes that I can still make, here are 20 cookies that disappeared for some reason. I’ll share when the discontinued cookies were produced, why they were pulled, and what’s the next best alternative today.  They’re in alphabetical order. (After this article, learn about famous brands that are struggling today .)

Almost Home Cookies

• Manufacturer: Nabisco
• Reason For Discontinuation: Low sales
• Best Alternative: Chewy Chips Ahoy

Nabisco’s goal with the Almost Home line of cookies was to make cookies that tasted like your mom made them. Tips were to microwave them for a few seconds to make them warm and gooey. Flavors included a variety of chocolate cookies, crème sandwiches, fruit sticks, grain-based, peanut butter, and sugar cookies. I miss the peanut butter fudge cookies most of all.

Apple Newtons

• Manufacturer: Nabisco
• Reason For Discontinuation: Unknown
• Best Alternative: Nature’s Bakery Oatmeal Apple Crumble Bars

I loved these delicate cake-like cookies and their apple pie filling. The exact dates of when Apple Newtons were available aren’t readily available. I know they were around for much of the 1990s, and it was in the early 2000s when I could no longer find them. In my opinion, they were the only Newton worth eating.

Chip-a-Roos

• Manufacturer: Sunshine
• Reason For Discontinuation: Company merger with Keebler
• Best Alternative: Chips Ahoy

Chip-a-Roos were a popular store-bought chocolate chip cookie. Their long run came to an end when the company sold to a competitor who didn’t need two similar cookies on the market.

Danish Wedding Cookies

• Manufacturer: Keebler
• Reason For Discontinuation: Dwindling sales
• Best Alternative: Homemade

The disappearance of Danish Wedding Cookies seems to depend on where you are. I haven’t seen them in at least five years in stores near me, but others talk about not finding them since the pandemic. They’re a beloved powdered sugar-coated coconut, oat, and chocolate cookie that inspired a Change.org petition to bring them back.

Famous Chocolate Wafers

• Manufacturer: Nabisco
• Reason For Discontinuation: A representative stated they’ve been “delisted” rather than discontinued.
• Best Alternative: Homemade or chocolate graham crackers if you can find them

This is probably one of the discontinued cookies that upsets me the most. They’re a staple in making a quick chocolate pie crust, or the recipe that made them famous – Icebox Zebra Cake. I’m hoping since they have delisted rather than discontinued, that they’ll return.

Forget-Me-Nots (Girl Scouts)

• Manufacturer: Girl Scouts
• Reason For Discontinuation: Unknown
• Best Alternative: McVitie’s Fruit Shortbread or homemade

I was a Girl Scout in the 1970s, and these delightful fruit and oat cookies came out shortly after I left. I loved them and never appreciated that they ditched them two years later.

Golden Fruit

• Manufacturer: Sunshine
• Reason For Discontinuation: Keebler merger
• Best Alternative: McVitie’s Fruit Shortbread or homemade

Just like in the last cookie, I absolutely loved buttery Golden Fruit cookies. These crispy raisin-filled biscuits weren’t too sweet and went great with a glass of milk.

Hermits

• Manufacturer: Freihofer
• Reason For Discontinuation: Closing bakeries after the company sold
• Best Alternative: Homemade

These spicy, sweet molasses and fruit cookies were my mom’s favorite. Since Freihofer closed some of its bakeries and Hermits disappeared, I found the only way to have them was to make them myself.

Lemon Coolers

• Manufacturer: Sunshine
• Reason For Discontinuation: Keebler merger
• Best Alternative: Homemade or search online for Memaw’s Country Kitchen

These melt-in-your-mouth lemon cookies had a coating of powdered sugar that added sweetness to the tartness of the lemons. While Sunshine no longer exists, there are smaller specialty food manufacturers like Memaw’s Country Kitchen that make them for sale online.

M&M’s Biscuits

• Manufacturer: M&M’s
• Reason For Discontinuation: Poor sales
• Best Alternative: Homemade

These cookies were amazing. It was a crunchy, soft wheat bar cookie covered with a strip of fudge and M&M’s pressed into that fudge strip. Nothing is close to them today, except making your own. I make peanut butter shortbread, cover it in ganache, and top that with peanut M&Ms.

Magic Middles

• Manufacturer: Keebler
• Reason For Discontinuation: Make room for new products
• Best Alternative: Chips Ahoy Chewy Brownie-Filled Cookies, if you can find them as they have also been discontinued towards the end of 2023.

The fudge or peanut butter filling in Magic Middles was amazing, especially if you warmed them in the microwave or a toaster oven for a short time. The crispy cookie outside was sugar or chocolate chip, and inside was the velvety, soft filling. They disappeared to make room for new products. I don’t feel any of the newer Keebler products have been worth the loss.

McDonaldland Cookies

• Manufacturer: McDonald’s
• Reason For Discontinuation: Unknown
• Best Alternative: Shortbread cookies

In the 1980s and 1990s, Happy Meals and McDonaldland Cookies were a common combination with kids. They were a tasty take on animal crackers, but I found them to taste a bit more buttery-like shortbread.

New Tea Time Cookies

• Manufacturer: Nabisco
• Reason For Discontinuation: Unknown
• Best Alternative: Royal Dansk

How I miss this cookie selection. It combined multiple types of cookies so that everyone was happy. There were wafer cookies, shortbread, chocolate cookies, and cream-filled options all designed to go with afternoon tea. Because I love chocolate wafer cookies, this mix hit all of my marks.

Opera Crème

• Manufacturer: Keebler
• Reason For Discontinuation: Uncertain
• Best Alternative: Dare Lemon Creme Sandwich Cookies

These were popular in the early 1980s, but I never liked them. The sandwich cookies came in chocolate or vanilla and had a lemon cream filling. I’m not fond of lemon and chocolate together. Only the vanilla and lemon were worth it to me.

PB Max

• Manufacturer: Mars
• Reason For Discontinuation: It’s rumored that the owners disliked peanut butter
• Best Alternative: Make your own

Take a round whole-grain cookie, cover it in peanut butter, dip it in chocolate, and sprinkle the chocolate with cookie pieces before it hardens. That combination was known as the PB Max, one of my favorite cookies, though some label it a candy. It was delicious no matter how it was categorized.

PB&J Sandwich Crackers

• Manufacturer: Austin
• Reason For Discontinuation: Uncertain
• Best Alternative: Make your own

My kids loved the Austin PB&J cracker packages in their lunches. Over time, the combination became impossible to find. I assume it had to do with Kellogg’s, aka Kellanova, purchasing Austin, but it’s unclear what happened.

Sandies Fudge Drops

• Manufacturer: Keebler
• Reason For Discontinuation: Uncertain
• Best Alternative: Spread Nutella on a Sandies cookie

Sandies are a buttery pecan shortbread. You can still find them in stores. For a while, Keebler offered a version that was similar to a thumbprint cookie, but the indent was filled with chocolate fudge instead of jam. They were delicious, but like many of my favorites, they became forgotten cookies.

Savannah Smiles

• Manufacturer: Girl Scouts
• Reason For Discontinuation: Replaced with Lemon Ups
• Best Alternative: Homemade

Over the years, the Girl Scouts cookie line-up has changed and few of my favorites have lasted. Savannah Smiles is one of the tasty treats that disappeared. They were tart and lemony with the right balance of sweetness.

Star Wars Cookies

• Manufacturer: Pepperidge Farm
• Reason For Discontinuation: Movie tie-in
• Best Alternative: Star Wars OREO Cookies or Teddy Grahams

When Star Wars came out originally, Pepperidge Farm released a series of shortbread-style cookies shaped like the characters. You could get them in chocolate (Imperial Forces), peanut butter (Rebel Alliance II), and vanilla (Rebel Alliance I). If you’re going for the Star Wars branding, OREO has a line of Star Wars cookies. If you want the flavor, Teddy Grahams are similar.

Swirly-Qs

• Manufacturer: Keebler
• Reason For Discontinuation: Uncertain
• Best Alternative: Homemade

Take shortbread cookie dough, top it with chocolate shortbread, and roll it up. Slice and bake those pinwheel cookies and you have a Swirly-Q cookie.

That’s 2o forgotten cookies I want back. You likely can add to this list. Keep learning about favorite foods by reading America’s 20 Favorite Snacks .

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