Little works of art delicious and beautiful
Bespoke cookies more than a sweet way to make customers smile
From baby showers to bachelorettes, anniversaries and 70th birthday parties, there’s no occasion that cannot be brightened up and made a little sweeter with East Londoner, Nicola van der Linde’s tasty, colourful cookies.
The mom of two started “biscuiteering” seven years ago, making Christmas cookies for fun with a friend, but it was only last year that she officially started her baking business.
“I’ve been ‘biscuiteering’ since 2014. I then made for my children’s teachers as gifts and after that a few friends asked for some and it just snowballed from there.
“Last year, I decided to go all in and I Do Cookies was born,” said Van der Linde, who moved to East London from Bloemfontein with her family seven years ago.
A graphic designer by trade, Van der Linde also runs her own design business but said she had been focusing more on her cookie baking and decorating business lately.
“My business is called I Do Designs and it has kind of taken over the last few years.”
She is a self taught biscuiteer and admits that baking is not something she always loved.
Van der Linde says, as a creative, it is designing and decorating her cookies that brings her the most joy.
“I can’t say that I always loved baking. To me it's more about the creative satisfaction I get from decorating the cookies than actually baking them.
“Baking has definitely not been a passion of mine, but I’ve always liked being creative.
“And so, I tried out cookies once and it just stuck,” Van der Linde, 38, said.
She said, though self taught, she had consulted numerous YouTube videos and baking sites on the internet while learning.
“I’ve had lots and lots of practice and there has definitely been a lot of trial and error.
“Sometimes my icing was too runny, other times way too thick. I had to learn which consistency worked for which technique I wanted to use.
“I have also burned my cookies numerous times.”
Over the years, Van der Linde has made hundreds of bespoke cookies for a variety of parties and special occasions.
From creating mini ice creams, farm animals, unicorns, engagement rings and even polaroid photographs, Van der Linde’s bespoke cookies are little works of art and they are just as tasty as they are beautiful.
“I mainly make vanilla cookies but I do offer chocolate as well. Most clients like to give me full creative freedom, but I usually ask for the theme or colour of the party to steer me in the right direction.”
While often given free rein, Van der Linde said some of the most unique and difficult cookies she had been asked to make were cookies that
resembled clients’ pets.
“The most interesting and challenging cookies are usually when clients want their dogs or cats on the cookies.
“They usually send me pictures and I try to make them more cartoonish. Other challenging cookies are definitely character cookies.”
She said it could take anything from an hour to three to make a batch of 20 cookies, depending on the decorating process.
“First you have to flood a base to work on that’s the first layer of icing. Then after that dries, I start making them pretty.
“After seven years, I still underestimate how long they take. It all depends on how much detail I add.”
She said though the process could take a long time, she enjoyed every minute of creating each cookie.
“It’s very therapeutic, it feels like arts and crafts class every day! The icing part of the
process is by far my favourite.”
She said making others smile was one of the most rewarding parts of running I Do Cookies.
“It’s seeing the client’s face when they open their cookie box.
“Also, you know you love what you do if you can still do a happy dance because of how your creations turned out , even if it's two in the morning!”
To find out more visit the I Do Cookies Instagram and Facebook pages.