For the “cookier” community, cookies aren’t just dessert — they’re works of art. With flour, sugar, and the right icing, they can represent milestones, celebrations, brands, holidays, and more.
“I feel like it’s the new ‘sister’ to cake decorating,” said Grace Gaylord, who runs her content platform, The Graceful Baker. “It’s something that has become increasingly popular.”
Three bakers, or “cookiers” in Astoria have learned the intricate art of cookie decorating and turned the skill into a business.
Grace Gaylord, The Graceful Baker
Grace Gaylord bakes cookies on weekly or monthly basis, but she doesn’t sell them. She’s a content creator.
She grew up baking with her artistic family and started decorating cookies for fun about 10 years ago — before it got as popular as it is now with Instagram. She learned the “hard way” by watching YouTube videos and reading blogs and made cookies for birthdays and holidays.
Gaylord took videos of every cookie she’s created and started posting content a few years ago on Instagram. She went from 1,000 followers to 100,000 in six months. Last fall, she dug her heels into being a content creator and has since grown her following on YouTube and TikTok, too.
Her videos, which often start with, “Let’s talk about this cookie,” show viewers various decorating techniques, shapes, and ideas.
“My goal is to both educate and entertain,” she said. Cookie decorators of all levels watch her videos. Her videos are intentionally satisfying, so they attract non-bakers, too.
There’s so much information and so many products out there, that new bakers need help knowing where to start, she said. For examples, scribes, a pointy tool for decorating, aren’t essential in the beginning. Gaylord said she used a toothpick for years.
Gaylord teaches classes and does private Zoom consultations that focus on the fundamentals of baking, not just decorating, to help people get started.
“It’s like I’m in your kitchen with you,” she said
The cookie world revolves around seasons and holidays, so that’s often Gaylord’s inspiration. Lately, her content has also served to educate people about holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Pride Month, and Black History Month. Recently, she made a set of maple leaves for the fall, also a nod to Vermont, where she grew up.
Her videos make decorating look easy, but “it’s incredibly time-consuming and incredibly back-breaking work,” Gaylord said.
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Brittany Jeffrey, It’s Brit’s Batch
Baking plays a main role in Brittany Jeffrey’s life, even though it started as a hobby. Jeffrey, who is an actress and works in the food service industry, has always loved to bake, taking after her grandmother.
While waiting tables and going on auditions, she realized she wanted to do something creative and see a project through from start to finish. She started baking French macarons for other servers at the restaurant she worked at. A coworker encouraged her to sell them. From there, her side business began in 2016.
Her baking skills even landed her a TV role — competing on Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” last year. She made it to the second round.
Hand-painted portraits on cookies are her specialty. Jeffreys uses food coloring and icing to create different textures and styles. Most clients — who range from parents buying cookies to kids’ birthday parties, to Broadway crews and movie stars, to corporations and engagement parties — find her through Instagram or word of mouth. One of her biggest orders was 500 cookies for Coach.
Popular orders include a custom set, a collection of cookies based on the person’s favorite things. For example, a recent anniversary set Jeffrey posted on Instagram included a bottle of Trader Joe’s wine, a Starbucks cup, purses, a dog, and a hand-drawn Martha Stewart portrait, all in different shapes.
She also gets creative with cookie flavors. “A lot of people do vanilla – it’s easier and cheaper,” she said. “I wanted to branch out from that.”
Popular flavors include strawberry black pepper, which was inspired by her favorite strawberry balsamic salad, and Turkish coffee, which has cardamom.
In the fall, apple cider cookies and black tea, earl grey, and Chai flavors are on the menu.
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Raysa Sanchez, Val’s Cookie Canvas
For Raysa Sanchez, Halloween is her busiest time of year for cookie orders — even more than Christmas.
It was also the season that she debuted her cookies outside of at-home experiments. The ghost-shaped cookies she made for a PTA bake sale “were a big hit,” she said.
Sanchez’s entry into baking is tied with motherhood. She started thinking about party planning when she was pregnant with her first child. From there, she discovered baking.
“I would spend lots of my pregnancy days Googling images of children’s party’s décor, and what stood out to me the most were the detailed treats,” Sanchez said.
She learned to bake cookies in 2010 while she was pregnant and has taken tutorials and online classes. By the time her daughter Vallerie was born, she had a go-to cookie recipe and a list of over 100 items and characters she wanted to turn into treats. Her business, Val’s Cookie Canvas, is named for her daughter.
Sanchez specializes in hand painted cookies and also gets inspiration from Vallerie, as well as comics, graffiti, and abstract art.
Social media trends like hot chocolate bombs also inspired her to make her own with cocoa and instant latte and cappuccino mixes inside. Her DIY cookie sets, like graffiti and mural-themed cookies that come with an edible ink pen, are best-sellers during the holidays.
During the pandemic, Sanchez started delivering orders to her clients with a mascot or someone in costume for the holidays. She also added smoking pumpkins — real, carved pumpkins with colored smoke bombs — to Halloween orders
“I remember clients calling me and writing to me to thank me because I brought joy to them and their children to their homes when the city was under quarantine,” Sanchez said. “Now I want to continue to do this for every holiday.”
This fall, flavors like pumpkin spice with cream cheese flavored royal icing, cinnamon roll and vanilla bean royal icing, and gingerbread with turbinado sugar flakes and butter-vanilla royal icing, among others, will be on the menu.
Sanchez loves selling cookies as a vendor at festivals — her first one was at the annual Halloween Harvest Festival at Socrates Sculpture Park — and looks forward to returning on October 30.
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