Growing up, my mom would always try to make these amazingly extravagant cakes for my birthday parties. I remember there being a baseball, football, an Incredible Hulk and SpongeBob Squarepants. These cakes were memorable and delicious, but I remember my mom being stressed out in the kitchen trying to make these cake dreams of mine a reality. Wouldn’t it have been nice to order stunning looking cookies with the theme I had in mind on them already? That’s where Simply Sweets Cookie Company comes in and has been saving parents from the stresses of their kitchens since 2020.
Tracy Rasmussen is the owner and operator of Simply Sweets Cookie Co. What started out as a hobby after being inspired by videos on various social media platforms has quickly turned into a successful business in the northwoods. She’s always been a baker and an artist from the time she could reach the kitchen countertops. Although she doesn’t have any formal training, her mom taught her a lot over the years and she’s picked up a variety of other fine details along the way. Most area birthday parties and business events now consist of decorated cookies from Simply Sweets Cookie Company. Tracy credits a lot of her success based on word of mouth at various parties and events with her cookies in attendance.
She purchased her website domain back in March of 2020, but didn’t decide to launch her company until July 1 of 2020. “I don’t know what took me so long from March until July to decide to just go for it,” Rasmussen stated. “It might have been a little bit of nerves and a little bit of self doubt, but once I started it took off and it has not stopped,” said Rasmussen. “It’s been a whirlwind.”
My first opportunity to taste some of Tracy’s cookies was back when I had one of her daughters in my second grade classroom. Her daughter came in with a small white cardboard container of cookies on the first day that were in the shapes of school buses and apples from what I can recall. They were delicious and when her daughter told me that her mom started her own cookie company, I knew our holiday classroom parties were never going to be the same.
When asked about how she makes her cookies, Rasmussen went into detail on some of the tools that she uses. “The two things I use the most are probably my tabletop projector and my air brush.” She uses the projector as a means to help her with various pictures or wording that goes onto her cookie creations. She uses her air brush to help her when it comes to using some stencils and airbrushing different designs onto the cookies. “But a lot of it is free hand piping,” Rasmussen said. “I don’t have an edible printer, so everything I do is by hand.” After looking at many of her cookie designs on her Instagram page, I was shocked to discover that.
Simply Sweets Cookie Company is known to bake for a lot of birthday parties, but can also do larger scale events. “The biggest order I’ve had was for 450 cookies,” said Rasmussen. It may require some planning, so I wouldn’t recommend waiting until the last minute to order a large amount, but know that Rasmussen is capable of doing more than Little Johnny’s birthday party in the family garage.
“I’ve had such positive feedback from our small community,” Rasmussen said. “It’s baffling to me and these people are just so nice to me.” Which has been great to hear that her business is doing so well even when she doesn’t have a brick and mortar store on Main Street or near downtown. She operates under the Wisconsin cottage food law that allows her the capability to bake and sell custom orders for pick-up or delivery anywhere in the state.
Before concluding our interview, I asked her if she had any messages to entrepreneurs just getting started. “To anybody that has a dream or wants to do something, just go for it and get out of your own way. That’s the biggest struggle is getting over your own fears, your own doubts,” said Rasmussen. “Get over the ‘what ifs’ and just go for it.”
To order cookies from Tracy at Simply Sweets Cookie Company, go to her website https://simplysweetscookieco.com or message her through her Facebook page or Instagram.
- Dalton Hessel