Inspired by the birth of her granddaughter Daisy, Bargara’s Carmen Delorie is baking a new business with The Cookie Daze.
Carmen’s background is in computers, where she worked as an IT engineer for 18 years, but she found after moving to the Bundaberg Region from Maitland early this year, a change of lifestyle brought about her new passion in the kitchen.
The Cookie Daze officially launched in July and orders are now flying out the oven door as Carmen believes she has filled a niche in the local market.
“The reason why I started The Cookie Daze was because when my daughter (Alex) gave birth to her second child, she was gifted a box of cookies, and I thought that was rather special,” Carmen said.
“I made a batch and my daughter said I should start to sell them, and I decided to name the business The Cookie Daze, after her daughter Daisy.”
Carmen said she currently has four varieties of New York styled cookies, with the signature recipe being The Cookie Daze choc chip and macadamia, using local macadamias.
“I use locally sourced macadamias from Marquis Macadamias, and these choc chip and macadamia cookies are quite popular,” she said.
“Then I also have choc chunk cookies, peanut butter brownie cookies, and oatmeal and raisin cookies.”
Keep an eye out for cookie of the month
The grandmother said she would also be releasing a special edition recipe with a cookie of the month.
October is set to be a caramel-filled cookie, and a rum and raisin cookie is in the works to celebrate the festive season during Christmas time in December.
“Business has really taken off, and I think it’s mostly word of mouth, I sell my cookies via Facebook and Instagram,” she said.
“I’m a bake-at-home business, and I bake every week on demand.
“I bake to sell, I don’t bake to store, so all my cookies are fresh and best eaten within four days.”
Carmen said she can bake a batch of pre-ordered cookies in the morning and have them ready in the post the same day, with overnight delivery to most parts of Queensland, or collected locally that afternoon.
“I never imagined I would be doing anything like this,” Carmen said.
“Without the birth of Daisy I definitely wouldn’t be, it never crossed my mind to step away from IT and turn toward baking, but I really love it.”
To find out more about The Cookie Daze click here.
- Other news: Turbo the cotton-top tamarin celebrates 10th birthday