For this Kansas City baker, one bite of a cookie has led to a surge in sales
Thursday was National Cookie Day, and Nichole Taylor was baking, as she often is, in the tiny back kitchen at Sister Anne’s Records & Coffee.
“Sorry for all the cookie dust,” Taylor said, brushing flour off her apron. “I feel like I’ve made a billion cookies today.”
She was working late, but it had nothing to do with a holiday promoted by cookie makers. It was because one of the internet’s loudest food critics had just raved about her signature treat.
Earlier in the week, Dave Portnoy — the Barstool Sports founder known for visiting pizzerias across the country and rating slices in his video reviews — stopped by Northeast Pizza, which opened in February at 2203 Lexington Ave. He gave the slice a respectable 7.7. For dessert, he unwrapped a chocolate-chip cookie Northeast Pizza sells and took a bite.
“I think the cookie is better than the pizza,” Portnoy told his millions of followers across social media. “8.3 on the cookie. Great cookie, thin, exactly how I like it. That might even be light on the cookie.”
The cookie, though, wasn’t Northeast Pizza’s. It was Taylor’s. She prepares the malted and sea salted Swiss chocolate chunk cookies at Sister Anne’s and wholesales them to Northeast Pizza — where the jump in sales was immediate.
“They usually sell about 12 a day over there,” Taylor said. “It’s been 50 the past few days. So I’ve been trying to catch up.”
Taylor has been refining the recipe since long before she became the in-house baker at Sister Anne’s, where the cookie is a customer favorite. Its most recognizable trait is the dark brown islands of Felchlin chocolate that float on the cookie’s golden surface.
“It’s this kind of smoky, kind of fruity chocolate,” Taylor said. “And then I use malted barley and molasses and Maldon sea salt. I’m pretty proud of it.”
Her path to this walk-in-sized midtown kitchen has been roundabout: an early apprenticeship with a chef at a dude ranch in Wyoming, stints at restaurants in England, pastry school at Johnson County Community College during the pandemic, then jobs at André’s and Westport Café. Taylor joined Sister Anne’s a little over two years ago, drawn by the flexibility and the chance to build her own specialty baking business alongside the shop’s.
“Jim (Oshel, Sister Anne’s co-owner) hired me because he’d been wanting sweets in here for a long time,” Taylor said. “He said, I’ll invest in all the equipment, I’ll let you use the kitchen for whatever you want, if you’ll come and fill the (bakery) case.”
The case is now full of Taylor’s work, all made with organic ingredients: cardamom coffee cake, cheddar–chive scones, savory hand pies, vegan banana walnut bread, pumpkin bread. Her cookie may be the headline this week, but regulars know the depth of the bench.
Alongside running Sister Anne’s pastry program, Taylor uses the same kitchen for Allouise Pâtisserie, the custom dessert business she’s growing slowly toward a brick-and-mortar location. She specializes in sculptural cakes — highly detailed, made-to-order pieces. One recent commission came from The Rabbit hOle, which asked Taylor to create a cake inspired by a children’s book. She constructed a fish-shaped coconut cake filled with passion-fruit curd. It looked like an illustration and tasted tropical.
“I love doing wedding cakes, I love doing stuff for special events,” Taylor said. “I like when the cakes can be more like art pieces. That’s what I’m super passionate about. It’s where I feel like I shine.”
The cookies she sells to Northeast Pizza are simpler, but they’re helping get her name out into the world. She’d like to do more of that kind of wholesale business. In the meantime, the “Barstool bump” seems to be a real thing.
“I mean, obviously, he’s a pretty big deal,” Taylor said of Portnoy. “I’ve been crazy busy here. So, I hope it lasts.”
