The Sugar Cookie Craze Everyone Loves Personalized Sugar Cookies!
By Karen Irvine Editor, ATOTK
There is a sugar cookie craze going on in the Kawarthas. I see friends ordering personalized
sugar cookies for special occasions. Graduation, birthday parties, retirement, babies, weddings and every other milestone. You name it, people are eating this craze up. We spoke to some of the creators of these beautiful, personalized cookies. Are you getting hungry yet? Need a sugar rush? Holly Bohnsack, April and August Bakery, has been baking for 2 years. She says, “I became obsessed watching cookie decorating videos on YouTube. My husband bought me a ton of decorating supplies as a creative outlet. I had no idea what I was doing but I had fun doing it. People started asking for custom orders and it just snowballed into a full time job. I had no idea this would happen and I wouldn’t have even considered myself artistic before any of this. I guess you do what you love and it shows.” Holly has had a challenging year. She says, “When COVID hit, my two kids no longer had school or daycare and I was overwhelmed. I have faithful customers that honestly made it possible to open back up in June, but it’s been tough. With restrictions on gatherings, I’m not getting any large orders. I think any event based businesses are hurting right now.” To top it off, Holly broke her back on April 9th. “But I’m not ready to give up - this is what I want to do, to grow, to nourish.” Another bakery is Emily Mae’s Cookies & Sweets owned by Jen Wight for the past 4 years. Jen says, “As a culinary kid, I’ve always had an interest in food, so I gave cookie decorating a go. I came across a tutorial on facebook on how to decorate sugar cookies!”
April and August
When COVID struck, Jen got creative. She started selling a DIY cookie decorating kit to give children an activity that offered something for them to look forward to (with a livestream video tutorial for them to decorate along with!) Jen also started a livestream tutorial called ‘Cookie Lookie’, where she decorates a set of cookies ‘live’ on Facebook. “We’d have viewers join in and they spend Friday nights with us (or Saturday afternoon in Australia!),” she says. Being the smart ‘cookie’ that she is, Jen participating in community programs such as ‘Starter Company Plus’ and ‘Bear’s Lair’, becoming finalists in both, while gaining knowledge and experience. Emily Boyko, owner of Butter Love Baking in Minden, has been baking sugar cookies since 2016. She says, “Before I started selling cookies my anxiety had peaked, I was having a really tough time, but it became a lot easier to manage after I started Butter Love. It turns Emily Mae’s Page 22
