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Fork. Spoon. Life. Sue Felder

When Sue Felder saw braille on a cookie, she knew it was something she wanted to make for someone. She put out a call on social media, got a response and made the personalized cookies for a young customer. Of the thousands of cookies she’s made, those just might be her favorite.

Felder has more than 2,000 cookie cutters and counting. That’s one of the staples behind her dream business: Lakeside Cookie Co., W63-N706 Washington Ave., Cedarburg. 

Felder and her husband, Bob, opened the doors on their custom cookie and decorating supply business in October. Custom cookies are shipped nationwide, and sold in the bakery case. Themes for cookies in the bakery case change weekly, and there is also a selection of other cookies on hand. Dough is available frozen. 

Less than a year after opening, the family business is expanding, and in June they’ll move cookie classes upstairs while shifting the extensive array of baking and decorating supplies downstairs. Look for nationwide shipping for the supply shop later this year. 

Cakes to cookies

When I was in my early 20s I started working at a bakery. I became the wedding cake decorator. I did that professionally for years. When I had my last baby, he’s almost 15 now, he was born with Down syndrome. I left the workforce and became a stay at home mom. 

I kept doing cakes to keep my skills fresh. My dream was to have a place of my own. It was always cakes. I would make cakes for weddings, but it wasn’t legal to make them in your home. So any occasion, a wedding, baby shower, you got a cake for a gift. We moved to Florida. When we moved back you could bake from home legally in Wisconsin. I started, then realized I did not enjoy making cakes anymore. I was totally burned out. 

I loved baking and still wanted a bakery. I’m just going to make cookies, try it. I made some and fell in love with the art of cookie making.

A tasty transition

If you can decorate a cake, you can probably decorate cookies. It is still food art. I started to switch to custom cookies. 

I grew it from home for three years. I told my husband I wanted to open a bakery. My husband was going to retire from the car industry. He decided to come and run the front of the store. Another reason I wanted the storefront is because I want our little guy, Bobby, to have a place to be able to work. 

Details take days

It is a multiple-day process to make the cookies. We do baking and flooding, the base layer of icing, on one day. The next day we do details. Then they sit overnight before being packaged. That is the hardest thing to get people to understand. They think they can call today and order something and get it. You can’t. 

Cookie cutters get creative

I probably have around 2,000 to 3,000 cookie cutters. It is a little over the top. A 3D cookie printed cutter is $5 to $8 per cutter. There is a big investment. 

Years ago you’d just have basic shapes: circle, square, hexagon. You’d put your shape on that. Now the trend is using the shape, like if you have an apple the cookie is in the shape of an apple. Another big trend is airbrushing on cookies. We also do hand painting. There are new and up-and-coming techniques that just weren’t around 20 years ago. 

Looking ahead

We just signed a lease to rent the space above us. That will be done in June and we’ll add a permanent classroom. Right now when we do classes I have to rearrange the whole shop. 

I do public classes. It doesn’t matter if you have previous decorating experience or not. You are going to learn something new. I have people who have been decorating for years and they come in and learn. 

Daily offerings

We have a bakery case. We change the theme for ‘grab and go’ every week. We also have drop style like chocolate chip. Our signature cookie, the "Dumpster fire" cookie, is super popular. It is salty, sweet and chewy. We have a frozen case with all of our dough for drop style, sugar cookies and other cookies. Take it home and bake it. We have birthday boxes. We’ll have grab and go graduation cookies. We book out four to six weeks for custom work, but we do have the themed grab and go case. 

Current craving

We make our triple chocolate cookie with browned butter, so it has this really rich flavor to it. That’s my favorite. We make like 10 pounds' worth of browned butter. When you make the cookies, the smell just wafts at you, so good! 

Favorite request

I saw someone who did braille cookies. I put it on my Instagram and said this is the coolest thing, I need someone to order these because I want to make them. I immediately got someone to respond. It was so beautiful. The little girl whose mother ordered them, she sent me video. The cookie had her name on it, so for her to read her name on it was super special. That was my favorite thing ever. I’ve never met her. I never will. They don’t live here, but to see the joy was incredible. 

Cookies for charity

We’ve recently partnered with Mel’s Charities in Ozaukee County, which benefits the special needs community. We’re their official cookie. This summer they’ll have Melapalooza festival, and they’ll have our cookies. 

Every year for World Down Syndrome Day I make sock cookies. I make them and donate the proceeds. We’re working on something big with that, too.

The last Fork. Spoon. Life.: Health issues take the teacher out of the classroom, but not the classroom out of the teacher

Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email psullivan@gannett.com.

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