My husband, Steve and I started Carousel Cookies in 2014.  We were finally able to move out of our home and into the Carousel Cookie Shoppe in June 2018.  The journey to get here was not easy and I had given up after 3 different commercial kitchens failed to materialize.  Then with my husband’s encouragement (oh dear Lord he had no idea what he was getting into) I started looking again for a place to call home and alas, our little shoppe found a home.

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​The food industry has always been in my family.  My grandfather was a Chef, my mom was a Nutritionist, my brother is a Chef and I personally have waitressed, made pizza's, was an assistant cook and have spent the last 15 years working for a food equipment rep/distribution company.   In 2021 When Food Equipment closed, I took the leap and decided to bake cookies full time.  I started doing Farm Markets as well as craft shows.

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​When I met my husband Steve over 30 years ago and I made cookies for him he was like "you need to sell these" but life interfered.

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Baking, well that has always been my passion.  I started young with my mom as my mentor, what makes this interesting is my mom is Polish but bakes better Italian cookies than most Italians.  She is a very talented cook and baker. We have always talked about doing this...owning our own shoppe, life however had other plans for us.  My parents moved to Florida, I continued to bake, mostly at the holidays.  My mom decided to tell me that the year before they moved that we had baked over 2000 cookies for Christmas.  Well, that first year I baked the same amount by myself.  My kitchen looked like a war zone.  Then my aunt asked if she could pay me to bake for her.  So, 4 ovens and countless batches of cookies later, we are where we always wanted to be.  I finally have my shoppe.  I have dragged my husband and daughter, Samantha, along for the ride.  In our house I call it mandatory volunteering. 

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While my husband does not bake (he has been known to put on an apron and help if needed), he does do marketing, sales and generally is the cleanup guy.  But hey, why not play to your strength.  He is great and helpful when I have just exhausted myself.  Originally, our daughter, Samantha, came along grungily, but generally was happy to help once the whining was over.  Recently, Samantha willingly decided to join the cookie crew (still trying to figure out how that happened).  While this may not be her passion, we are having fun in the kitchen.

When we started, we decided we did not want to be a retail baker so, we don't have a store front, but if you are local, you can pick orders up or I ship anywhere in the continental US.  Our cookies are all made by hand, in small batches with love and the finest ingredients.  When you love what you are doing it shows in the results and people think our results are delicious.

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Our Farmhouse cookies are available as ¼ lb cookies or mini.  We offer all of your standard flavors but then we also make fun and unique flavors like Strawberry Lemonade, Peach Ginger, Lemon Cream, Creamsicle.  At any point we can have up to 21 different flavors.  If you can’t find a flavor you like you really don’t like cookies.

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My sister, niece, nephews, brother and sister-in-law have all been known to pinch hit when needed.  Even mom, who now lives back in Rochester, comes along to help.  As you can imagine it becomes a big old Italian party at that point.

I hope you found our story to be entertaining.  I believe our cookies will make you feel like you are surrounded by family and friends. 

 

We think you will agree.