Macy Isenberg reported this story on assignment from The Other Paper. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
Laura Collins danced around the classroom, peering over her student’s shoulders, demonstrating her icing skills and explaining the cookie decorating process.
During her first class at Red Poppy Cakery in Waterbury on Feb. 13, Collins, a math teacher at Essex High School, watched her students forge friendships with fellow decorators as they stepped out of their comfort zones and into the cookie decorating world. The attendees, made up of locals wanting to try something new and Collins’ teaching colleagues, chatted and laughed with their tablemates as they shared their icing strategies.
“I teach math, and with teaching cookie decorating, people actually want to be there,” Collins said with a laugh. “I get to have more creativity with it.”
Collins started her business out of her home kitchen in 2019. She bakes and decorates cookies by hand for events like children’s birthday parties and bachelorette parties. She’s lived in South Burlington since 2021 and restarted her cookie decorating business after she temporarily stopped sales during the pandemic.
She said she’s always wanted to combine her passion for teaching with her knack for cookie decorating, and with the recent implementation of her immersive decorating classes, she thinks she’s found the perfect way to do that.
“I’ve seen other people do this, and two or three years ago I purchased some how-to books, so I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” she said of the new business venture. “It was just about finding a place to host them and finding the right materials for teaching.”
During the decorating classes, participants are given materials including piping bags, tools, practice sheets, reference pictures and cookies. They begin by practicing drawing lines and circles on the practice sheets before moving on to the real thing. Collins said the classes are meant to be a fun experience and a way to connect with people.
“I was curious to see how she was going to do it because it’s such an individual artform,” said Kristin McNamara, one of Collins’ colleagues who attended the class. “I was excited to see how she walked around to help all of us, and when I first sat down I saw she had pictures and I thought that was brilliant.”
Collins hopes that decorating cookies can be a fun way to brighten gloomy winter days. “I want everyone to have fun and meet new people,” she said.
As a geometry teacher, instruction is not a new skill to Collins, but she described the experience as different from her day job. She said her time in the classroom helps with the preparation for the class.
“I know that people are different types of learners, and some people need to see it explained again,” she said. “It just felt like creating another lesson plan.”
Collins has always been an avid baker. She grew up baking with her mom and treating her friends to cookies, but had always been inspired by other cookie decorators who did more — balancing their regular jobs with cookie-baking businesses. Living with roommates and balancing her career as an educator made it a challenge to open her business sooner, but around four years ago Collins had the resources to make her dream a reality. Now she fulfills personal orders and leads decorating classes in the greater Burlington area.
In the age of social media, Collins said she gathers a lot of her inspiration from other cookie decorators on Instagram. The digital space offers a community of fellow business owners, but she noted it can also be extremely competitive. She said it’s difficult to avoid comparing herself to other business owners in the same space, and she has felt overwhelmed in the past by the pressure to rapidly produce content.
“I have to be confident in what I’m doing,” she said. “From there I can take the opportunities that are presented to me.”
As her business continues to expand, she is taking advantage of more opportunities in the Burlington area like scheduling more decorating classes for the spring and partnering with local businesses to promote her product.
Collins said her first event was a huge success, and she is excited about teaching her next class at Putnam Vineyards on Mar. 7.