food
G E N E RAT I O N A L R EC I P ES How cookies from Full Circle Bakery have given back to the community JUDY COOKIES became popular in the neighborhood long before Full Circle Bakery ever started. Judy Yarbrough made the first batch of her self-named cookies in 1998 for Vacation Bible School at Wilshire Baptist Church. The cookies, which are also known as Texas Cow Chips, are made with chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, coconut, oatmeal and pecans. “Every year since then, they have asked me if I would make the Judy Cookies,” Judy says. Her son Collin Yarbrough says they had always joked about selling Judy’s cookies in the past. “The mother-son duo never seriously considered starting a business until 2012, when Collin came up with the idea to start a bakery that focuses on supporting other local organizations and businesses Collin had graduated from college around this time, but struggled to find work due to lingering effects of the recession. He made the reluctant decision to move back
home with his parents in Lake Highlands. Collin started Full Circle Bakery on Valentine’s Day in 2012 out of the Yarbrough home. The Texas Cottage Food Law had passed the year before and legalized home food businesses. Orders are done online, by email and by calling. Judy and Collin’s partnership began in late 2012 after Collin took on a full-time job while continuing to manage the bakery. “That was when I asked him if he would like for me to join him in the endeavor, and he was kind of like, ‘I thought you’d never ask,’” Judy says. “We’ve been working together since then.” Judy and Collin were back baking in the kitchen together as they had in Collin’s childhood. “I started baking because I grew up in the kitchen next to mom all the time,” Collin says. “I’m the youngest of four, and I was pretty much the only one of us that really took to being in the kitchen with mom.”
Story by ELIZABETH UCLÉS | Photography by OWEN JONES
14 lakehighlands.advocatemag.com MARCH 2021
