Give the gift of an experience, or a locally-made treat, this holiday season

ALTON — Who doesn’t love a cookie? With a sweet taste and smooth icing, a cookie warm from the oven and just waiting to be eaten is heavenly. 

Inviting friends and family to a cookie decorating class is a great way to kick off the holiday season. 

For those who want to learn how to expertly make and decorate cookies, expert baker, Leah Whitney offers some fun and informative events in a variety of locations. Whitney is the owner of homestead food operation, Cookie Bear Baking LLC.

“In a class, there are typically eight to 10 people at a private home. I want to offer more than how to make cookies," she says. Twenty percent of the proceeds from each class go to a charity of the host's choice, and everyone feels they are giving back to the community.

This act of sharing is called Cookies and Kindness and it is a great way to help others, while making something sweet. Whitney writes on her website, “Through my business I try hard to spread joy, kindness and empathy, while fighting for causes I believe in. Cookie Bear has been lucky enough to be able to support infertility charities four years running; teachers in need of school supplies found through the @donorschoose website; veterans and businesses in need of support through COVID-19. Cookie Bear is a proud supporter of families with food insecurity by supporting the local End 68 Hours of hunger, the NH food bank and recently the Farm to Table initiative. We continue to support Black Lives Matter, causes to end child trafficking, the ACLU, the Trevor Project, and countless other charities that benefit so many.”

When she started giving classes, Whitney traveled to a host’s house, but now she offers classes in bigger spaces as well so more people can attend and learn the art of decorating sugar cookies. For each class, Whitney comes with pre-baked sugar cookies and participants decorate them during the class. “I bring bags, the cookie recipe and cookie cutters,” she explains. “Each person leaves with four decorated cookies.”

As she experimented with how to decorate cookies, Whitney learned the consistency of the icing is very important. “If you want to learn how to do it, you have to practice, practice, practice,” she advises.

Each week — especially in a bustling holiday season — Whitney is busy. Each Monday, she confirms upcoming orders with customers; Tuesday she rolls cookie dough and takes care of office paperwork; after chilling the dough overnight, on Wednesday she decorates, and if the order is large, this might take two days; cookie orders are ready and picked up by customers on Friday.

Whitney has loved baking since she was a child and continued making cookies in high school and college.

“I have a master’s degree in mental health counseling,” says Whitney. “At times, I got together with friends and co-workers for cookie decorating. After I had a baby, and I wanted to be home with my child. It was then I started to experiment with baking decorated sugar cookies.”

Whitney is a self-taught baker and at first used a sugar cookie mix, but before long, she developed her own recipe. “I watched some Instagram videos when my son was napping,” Whitney recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘I can do that.’ I practiced about four to five years baking and decorating cookies. At first, my family served as my test subjects. I gave them cookies I made for practice runs and taste tests.”

Eventually Whitney realized she could turn her cookie decorating hobby into a small business. She made a dozen cookies at a time and sold them, usually by word-of-mouth. Whitney sells cookies via custom orders in advance. Customers pick up their cookies when ready.

The popularity of Cookie Bear Baking LLC has grown far beyond Whitney’s early days as a cookie maker. “My first big order was for my sister’s wedding. She wanted 120 cookies,” Whitney remembers.

Ninety-five percent of the orders at Cookie Bear are custom requests. Whitney will confer with a customer to learn what theme or design they envision. Then she gets to work creating a cookie in a shape and icing that fulfills the order. Some of the orders are more challenging, but Whitney relishes such creative work. One example was a customer requesting cookies in the shape of butterflies. Whitney was able to create a beautiful, iced cookie in a butterfly shape that was almost too perfect to eat.

To achieve a variety of shapes and designs, Whitney says, “I have about five bins full of cookie cutters. The most unusual order I had was a potato-themed birthday party. I made cookies with designs of fries, baked potatoes and even Lay’s Potato Chips.”

Each cookie in an order is individually heat-sealed in cellophane packages; small orders come in a box with a ribbon.

For information on classes and orders, visit cookiebearbakingllc.weebly.com.