From Christmas Cookie Trays to Mae Mae’s Morsels

Hi! I’m Nicolette, and welcome to Mae Mae’s Morsels—my little corner of the cookie world.

It feels a little strange to be writing the first official blog post for a cookie business, mostly because I never really planned on starting one. Cookies and baking, however, have been part of my life for a very long time. And, oddly enough, it all started with a gingerbread sleigh.

The Gingerbread Sleigh That Never Was

My cookie story started a long, long time ago with a gingerbread sleigh. Actually, it started with the Better Homes and Gardens Christmas edition.

Even as a teenager, I liked leafing through Better Homes and Gardens and I especially loved the holiday editions. One year, a recipe caught my eye: how to make a gingerbread sleigh filled with cookies. I thought, Hey, that would be a cool thing to make for Christmas.

There was just one small problem. I’ve never really baked anything before, never mind anything that required a bit of culinary construction know-how.

So, I never actually made the sleigh. I did, however, make some pretty decent gingerbread cookies that Christmas—and those cookies ended up sticking around. My Uncle Walter loved them. My mom loved them. And they became one of the recipes that came back year after year.

That was really the beginning.

Christmas Cookies Became a Tradition

Christmas is my favorite holiday, and over the years, baking became one of the things I looked forward to most.

Every Christmas, out came the cookie sheets, cookie scoops, flour, eggs, and butter (along with the holiday edition of whatever magazine caught my eye that year). I’d try new recipes, revisit old favorites, and attempt to make each batch just a little better than the one before it. Some recipes became family favorites. Others did not leave the kitchen.

Eventually, my annual baking lineup grew beyond those original gingerbread cookies to include chocolate chip cookies, lemon cookies, decorated sugar cookies, molasses cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, fudge and all sorts of experiments along the way.

Different cookies developed their own fan clubs. My husband’s favorite is Oatmeal Raisin. My niece loves my decorated sugar cookies (although she may soon be switching her allegiance to a new item that’s coming out of the test kitchen soon), but she absolutely despises my lemon cookies. To be fair, it’s not really the cookie’s fault. She just really, really hates lemon.

My nephew? He’s firmly on Team Brookie.

And he’s not alone.

Then Came the Brookie

The Brookie—a combination of chocolate chip cookie and brownie—quickly became one of our family favorites. But apparently, it wasn’t quite perfect.

My husband is one of my most reliable taste testers, partly because I can always count on him to be brutally honest. If he loves something, he’ll tell me. And if he thinks something could be better…well, he’ll definitely tell me that too, whether I want to hear it or not.

After one batch of Brookies, he pointed out that the brownie side tended to be a bit too dry and got hard too quickly. Plus, it could stand to be more fudge-like.

Okay. Challenge accepted.

I started tinkering with the recipe, mostly focusing on the brownie side. The only complaint he had about the chocolate chip side was there was too many chocolate chips (which is complete madness of course). Batch after batch, I worked on getting closer to what I wanted: a Brookie with the best of both worlds—a great chocolate chip cookie paired with a rich, fudgy brownie.

Eventually, I got there, and that’s when the Brookies went from being a family favorite to the cookie that people started fighting over. When everyone is arguing about who gets the last one, I figure you’ve probably done something right.

And the Brookie wasn’t the only cookie I started tinkering with.

One day my husband came back from a trip to New York City and presented me with my first Black and White cookie. I fell in love with those, too…chocolate and vanilla together? What’s not to like? Naturally, that meant I had to start experimenting with my own version, which I’m proud to say came very close to what he brought back from his trip. The more I baked, the more curious I became.

I Blame The Great British Baking Show

Well, maybe not entirely. But it definitely didn’t help.

Once I discovered The Great British Baking Show (or the The Great British Bake Off for all the UK peeps), my baking really took off. I started watching it while I baked and picked up all kinds of interesting tips along the way. I still put it on as part of my holiday baking ritual, mostly as background noise while I’m mixing, melting chocolate and pulling hot cookies out of the oven.

Meanwhile, my Christmas cookie tradition was getting bigger. I started baking for coworkers, sometimes putting together huge cookie displays filled with different recipes I’d discovered and tested. Occasionally, I’d take requests. One year somebody asked for Cowboy Cookies, which I ended up making. They were fantastic.

Eventually, I was also baking for remote coworkers and family members around the country. Cookies were packed into boxes and shipped as far away as Minnesota and California so they’d arrive in time for Christmas. What had once been a few Christmas cookies had somehow become a whole operation, and somewhere along the way, people started telling me:

“You should sell these.”

I Probably Shouldn’t Have Joked About It

For years, I mostly laughed off the suggestion. I already had a busy life and a full-time job. I also had my African violets—another hobby I somehow fell into during COVID—and my jewelry business. Starting a cookie business? When exactly was I supposed to do that?

So I used to joke:

“If I ever lose my job, I’ll take that as my sign that I’m supposed to start selling cookies.”

Apparently, I said that often enough for the universe to say back:

Okay. Go ahead and do that.

Suddenly, the idea I’d been joking about for years didn’t seem quite so hypothetical anymore. My mother and husband, who have been enjoying the cookies for years, was more than ready. In fact, my husband had already picked out the name.

Meet Mae Mae

So where did Mae Mae’s Morsels come from?

Mae Mae is me.

My niece and nephew call me Auntie Mae Mae (another nickname dreamed up by my husband. Nicknames are apparently one of his many superpowers), and every Christmas they’d talk about Auntie Mae Mae’s cookies—which ones they wanted, which ones were their favorites and, occasionally, which ones they most definitely did not want. When my husband suggested Mae Mae’s Morsels, it just seemed to fit.

Because these cookies have always been connected to family, friends, holidays and sharing something I’ve made with people I care about. Now I’m getting the opportunity to share them with a few more people.

So…What Happens Next?

That’s what this blog is going to be about. It’s very much an adventure in progress.

I’m testing cookies, revisiting old favorites, listening to my brutally honest taste testers, experimenting with ingredients, and developing new flavors. I’m learning what it takes to turn years of home baking into an actual cookie business. And I’m preparing for something I’ve never done before: Selling the cookies. I’ll be sharing some of that journey here.

You’ll occasionally get a peek Behind the Morsels at what happens in the kitchen and what I’m learning as I build the business.

We’ll go Inside the Morsel to explore some of the ingredients and flavor combinations I’m experimenting with—including a few you may not have encountered before.

There will be some Cookie School, with useful information about cookies, storing them, serving them and enjoying them. Don’t worry, though—I’m keeping my recipes to myself.

And then there’s the Mae Mae’s Test Kitchen, where things could get particularly interesting.

Some experiments may become future Morsels. Some probably won’t, but that’s part of the fun.

And Now for the First Drop

Right now, I’m preparing for another first:

The very first Mae Mae’s Morsels cookie drop.

It’s exciting. And it’s a little terrifying.

It involves considerably more than teenage me could possibly have imagined when she decided she was going to build that gingerbread sleigh…which, for the record, I still haven’t made. Maybe someday.

In the meantime, there are cookies to bake.

Want to See What’s Baking Next?

Join The Morsels List and you’ll get first dibs on upcoming cookie drops, new flavors, Test Kitchen experiments, local events and other sweet news from Mae Mae’s Morsels.

Every now and then, there might even be a little treat in it for you.

Thanks for finding your way to my corner of the cookie world. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you’ll come along for the adventure.

Nicolette,

Founder & Baker in Chief
Mae Mae’s Morsels
Worth Every Bite.