01What does your business do, in your own words?
Sweetest Cookie is my little creative outlet where I get to make decorated sugar cookies for people's special occasions. I love taking an idea someone has in their head and figuring out how to turn it into a cookie. Every order is different, which keeps it interesting for me. After spending so many years in the military, I really enjoy having something that lets me slow down, be creative, and make people happy.
“The biggest difference is that now my "mission" sometimes involves butter, sugar, and a whole lot of royal icing.”
02How did you get started? Give us the origin story.
I'm a retired Army veteran, and after retiring I wanted something that would give me a creative challenge and something to look forward to. I started experimenting with decorated sugar cookies and quickly realized there was a lot more to it than just baking a cookie. There is a whole learning curve with icing, consistency, decorating, and figuring out what works. What started as me playing around in my kitchen eventually turned into Sweetest Cookie.
03What would locals be surprised to learn about you or the business?
I think people would be surprised to know that I'm a retired military veteran. My military career was very different from what I do now, but I actually see a lot of similarities between the two. I'm still very particular about details, I like things organized, and I take pride in doing things right. The biggest difference is that now my "mission" sometimes involves butter, sugar, and a whole lot of royal icing.
04What's the hardest part of running this business that nobody sees?
People mostly see the finished cookie, but there is a lot that happens before that cookie ever goes into a box. There's planning, baking, mixing colors, making icing, decorating, drying, packaging, cleaning, and usually a lot of dishes. Some designs that look simple can take hours. The hardest part for me is probably knowing when to stop tweaking something because I can always find one more little detail I want to fix.
05What's your busiest day of the year like?
A busy cookie week can get pretty crazy. My kitchen turns into a production area, and there are cookies everywhere, baking sheets, icing bags, containers, decorating supplies, and boxes. I'm usually thinking several steps ahead because different designs need different amounts of time. It can be exhausting, but there's also something really satisfying about seeing everything finished and boxed up at the end.
06If you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?
That's a tough one because I'm enjoying having this creative chapter of my life. I spent many years in the Army, so retirement gave me the opportunity to explore something completely different. I think I would still want to be doing something where I could work with people, stay busy, and have a creative side to it. I'm still figuring out exactly what this next chapter looks like, but I'm having a lot of fun with the cookie part of it.
“There are cookies everywhere, baking sheets, icing bags, containers, decorating supplies, and boxes.”
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