We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Henegar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily below.

Emily, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

Absolutely not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure many of y’all reading this are older than the age of 11 so I’m not saying it’s the magic age to start a business and sucks for you if you missed your chance. I don’t even think that you need a decade to master the skill of decorating cookies, to grow up with your passion, or to study business. (read the parable of the late-coming workers in Matthew 20 if you don’t believe me!) What I gained from these 11+ years, and what I encourage you to learn from me, was the childlike perspective of following the threads of my passion with open, curious hands.

Engaging with curiosity is not something that can be rushed. It takes time to learn what you don’t know—to find your questions as well as your answers. My counselor told me recently to reflect on the natural boundaries that came from being a student and a child, that as a recent graduate, I now want to impose in my life. There are many practical ways I could answer that question, but to go more big picture, I want to take with me the posture and pace of slowness. An 11 year slow burn is not the most excitable vision for a business, sure. Growth is always going to be on people’s minds, especially if you have a bigger vision than what you do now. I clearly remember winning a pitch competition my first semester of college and one of the judges wrote “how to scale?” on the side of his notes. But it’s okay to say “I don’t know,” and to find that answer slowly. A wise mentor told me, “hurry up or wait, but don’t do both.” I chose to wait. Well, God chose for me to wait. And I’m better for it.

So now I want to encourage you! Obviously we live in a fast-paced culture; what are the ways you feel pressured to speed up, knowing you’d benefit from slowing down? Ironically of course, sometimes you can’t even answer that question without slowing down in the first place. If you find yourself without an answer—honestly, without many answers—slow down. The world can take it, your business can take it, your relationships want it. Heck, after graduating I could have continued with the momentum I had been steadily building and jumped into full time orders, easy. But I didn’t. Instead, I deleted social media from my phone, I didn’t look at my email, I packed all of my cookie supplies away and took three months off, two weeks of which I spent at a retreat in Switzerland called L’Abri to study work and identity. The pace of life there was full yet slow; It didn’t only encourage open handed curiosity, it demanded it. You may not have the means to not work for three months or go to a retreat in Switzerland, but I promise you there are ways right now that you can slow down. The life line you’re clinging to has more slack than you think it does. And it will take sacrifice, but the loss is marginal compared to what you will gain.

Emily, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hello friends! My name is Emily Henegar, aka “The Cookie Girl.” I’m an entrepreneur, cookie designer, & content creator with an abiding love for helping people feel seen & celebrated. For the past 11 years, I have independently run a custom cookie business called Cookie in the Kitchen. I handcraft artisan decorated cookies, as special as the people they represent, to celebrate and illustrate the significant moments, relationships, and stories of unique lives. I just graduated from Belmont University this past May and now live and work in Nashville to create cookies full time for various celebrations, digital content, and musicians and celebrities!

My work may look professional now, but trust me, my cookies weren’t always this pretty. I started Cookie in the Kitchen in my hometown of Atlanta, GA as a lil’ eleven year old with a raging sweet tooth and a passion for baking. My older sister had a business on Etsy at the time and I thought it was the coolest thing, (I mean, she had a debit card, so…) why not start a business of my own? To kick it off, my sister helped draw me a logo and my mom helped me set up a WordPress blog. On February 6th, 2011, I walked around my neighborhood passing out samples with a business card and a toothy grin. I got orders for 19 dozen cookies; we had to stop before I got even more. “That’s 19 times twelve Emily!” said my mother.

I played around in the kitchen for years with simple drop cookies and various Pinterest desserts, but the demand for decorated cookies grew strong. Soon enough, my orders went from neighbors and church friends, to business and people from Google. Decorated cookies were almost exclusively what I was known for. While my customers’ demand led me to them, what kept me there was the depth of passion I found in the artistry of decorating cookies. Of course I wasn’t that skilled yet, but I loved every part of it: Researching and creating designs, sourcing cookie cutters, mixing colors, and the quiet stillness of hours spent decorating by myself late into the night. My mom has a severe gluten allergy, so I worked in our mudroom-turned-cookie-studio to avoid cross contamination as best I could.

5 years in, so my sophomore year of high school, I discovered a major piece of what I do now: my love and talent for graphic design. It didn’t take me long to put two and two together and realize I was essentially doing graphic design on a cookie! No longer was I limited to quite literally cookie cutter designs, but I could really put anything on a cookie. That opened up an entire new world to me, pushing my creativity and improving my skill with complex designs. But the fruition of that wasn’t simply more interesting orders for baby showers and holiday parties.

At the same time, I discovered another passion for music—not playing it, but following along with the story and work of bands and musicians. Again, it clicked: If I could put anything on a cookie, why not an album cover? I filled my schedule with a concert every night of the week amidst homework, cross country meets, and cookie orders. Most shows I went to I decided to bring with me a set of highly detailed and personalized cookies recreating their album art, band photos, merch designs, fan art, and more. If pre-concert anxiety wasn’t already enough, I was antsy post-concert as well, waiting with the box of cookies in hand by tour buses, merch tables, or other fans hoping to meet the band.

I was always able to get the cookies to the band, and most times successful in getting to hand deliver them and witness their reaction, too. It never got old. Of course it was fun talking face to face with the musicians that meant so much to me personally, or burst in excitement when getting notifications like “@theheadandtheheart tagged you in a post,” but that wasn’t my favorite part. What I loved was that through these personalized cookies capturing the heart of their life, career, and person, I experienced the barrier of fan-to-star falling as we connected as artist-to-artist, both in awe of each others’ talent. It was surprising and intimate and awkward and exciting and it is still all of those things today.

That’s only the first 7 years! Man, 11 years is a lot of ground to cover…But I’ll wrap it up quickly.

I decided to go to Belmont University in Nashville, TN to study Entrepreneurship and Graphic Design so I could learn how to grow my business and if I could realistically pursue my dream of opening a bakery. It was the perfect school for me. I kept my business mostly on pause but would let orders slide through the cracks in between classes, sorority chapter meetings, campus ministry events, and of course, concerts. I baked in and out of friend’s kitchens, residence halls, dorm apartments, and rental houses. It was a beautiful blur. I learned SO much those four years, but my most important takeaway was that while I love being a baker, I feel much more connected to the identity of being an entrepreneur. Ironically, I was going through a breakup at the time I took my first entrepreneurship class, and when we learned the three markers of an entrepreneur—creativity and innovation, willingness to take risks, and resiliency after failure—I had a major epiphany that I wasn’t just an entrepreneur because I started a business, but because it’s who I am! I had all of those traits not just in being Cookie, but in that breakup, in my friendships, in being a student, all of it.

I graduated May 2022 and am now collaborating with cookies in Nashville full time. Unlike other creative hobbies I toy with for a year and subsequently lose interest in, cookies have stuck around; they’ve grown up with me! I don’t simply credit the longevity of my business to my stubborn disposition—though it does help—but how God has woven in different passions, niches, and opportunities through the heart of my work, leading me to a vision that is greater than myself. I’ve never been bored…mmm probably ever, but especially while running Cookie in the Kitchen. I’m SO grateful for how I have been blessed in this vocation and have big plans and dreams for what is next—primarily, pursuing opening a bakery in Nashville. There’s so much more to share, friends! But I’ll end it here to get to your other questions.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Absolutely! My socials were pretty average from about 2015-2019. I would get shoutouts from musicians and celebrities at times that would boost my following, but it was pretty marginal overall. I decided in 2020 that I wanted to create video content and revamp my Instagram so it was more pleasing to look at—fewer cookies in photos, vertical vs horizontal pics, “satisfying” decorating videos, etc. After this, people told me they spend hours scrolling on my page. They of course boosted my engagement, but more importantly they were engaging with me. They were learning about my aesthetic style, my story, my personality. And they could see themselves in my work; if they see a personalized cookie set for someone’s birthday, it’s second nature for them to envision what their birthday cookie set would include or who they would want to order cookies for. Give your audience the opportunity to engage in your story, and then see where they would fit in it. Social media is a constantly updating portfolio after all—so utilize it as such!

I really blew up September 2021 on TikTok. I had reached out to an arena I had a relationship with and pitched a cookie set for Harry Styles. They said yes (literally pinch me, it blows my mind every time I remember he ate my cookies) and I knew it was the perfect opportunity to grow on TikTok. I had been posting very irregularly on there since 2020 and nothing had taken off, so I asked for advice from a friend who had been successful on TikTok. He told me to post 2-3 decorating videos a day with a voiceover, for at least a week and see what happens. 3 days later and one of those videos hit 500k views. It gave me the momentum for the Harry Styles cookies, and of course the intensity of his fanbase carried it all the way through. Before I knew it I had 100k followers, orders coming in from people discovering me from the app, and requests for cookie content creation from brands like Target and MTV. It was a whirlwind!

My advice for sustainably growing your social media:
As a Gen Z… Build your presence by consistently showing up with your full self. You don’t have to always “feed the beast,” (see my thoughts on slowing down) to make it easy for your audience to engage with you. Let people see the artist behind the art. If you don’t believe me, look at the accounts you feel the most connected to! Is it because they post content 24/7 or because they show their face, their behind the scenes, their personal life?

As an Entrepreneur…Know your unique story and how it fits into the bigger conglomeration of voices around you. What is the story you want to tell—the story only you can tell? You have one, I promise. Take time to find the answer. Ask people that know you well and ask your audience to help you. Also! Consider macro trends that you fit into and highlight them. Some that impact me, for example, are experiences over practical goods, individualism and personalized products, and supporting local artists/small businesses.

As a Christian…Consider how your social media can turn from self promotion to service. What does your audience gain from engaging with you on social media other than thinking that you’re cool and talented and successful? Maybe you want to inspire creativity and celebration, or provide resources for learning your skill, or establish relationships with clients. How can your social media be a vessel to something greater than just more followers, more leads, more business?

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

First, help us lean out. Creative work is all consuming, not only because it’s so time intensive, but because it demands so much of yourself to live inside your work. We are not able to separate our creativity and our identity because we cannot have one without the other. Help us get out of our own heads by reminding us that we are more than what we produce—though with softness and grace as it can be hard for us to hear sometimes. It is vulnerable work to be creative, and our hearts can take a hit with so much pouring out. The author of The Common Rule says, “To have consistent, meaningful output we must have consistent meaningful input.” Of course, pouring into us through simple, deep friendship is a major way to do that. One of my favorite moments like this was when I had just made my Harry Styles cookies. I was receiving a ton of praise which was of course affirming but very overwhelming. A dear friend came up to me after a pop up I had, sat with me while I packed up, and said some simple sweet compliment about my heart. It was the most meaningful thing I heard all day!

So, help us lean out but also lean in!! Ask us what’s been inspiring us recently, ask about the creative endeavors we’re pursuing outside of our vocation (for example, I’m a poet, too!), and don’t just tell us that we’re talented, but tell us how you see our work being impactful and meaningful to you or the world. And call us out when we get stuck in comparison! We cannot produce anything of substance when we get lost in envy; competition is the mortal enemy of creativity. Remind us of the unique voice we bring to the table. And let us mirror these truths back to you too!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cookieinthekitchen.com/
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/cookieinthekitchen
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cookieinthekitchen2011/
• Other: TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJap4Gem/ My mailing list: https://www.cookieinthekitchen.com/#comp-kcvcm2w9 (updates on order availability & business happenings)

Image Credits
Photo with piping bag – Reba Spake Photography Photo with yellow shirt and back turned – Gabriella Hughes