“I specifically remember having the chicken pox when I was in fourth grade,” she said. “I wanted to make brownies, preheated the oven, and unfortunately the pan with a plastic lid was in the oven, and I melted it.”

Since then, her technique has definitely improved and now, she creates beautifully decorated cookies for family and friends that look like something out of a magazine.

Mitchell, who lives just outside Millersville, recalls that her grandmother “handed her cookie recipes down to me, and I won first place with her sand tart recipe one year in a cookie contest,” she said.

Although her mother and grandmother were avid bakers, “fancy” decoration wasn’t really something they did. But it was something Mitchell very much wanted to try.

“Decorating is something I kind of just taught myself by playing around,” she said. “I just recently started decorating cookies. I kept seeing these videos on Facebook, and I longed to be able to make them too. “

Mitchell found an online site called Lolly’s Cookie Class that was offering a cookie boot camp.

“I used my Christmas money to purchase the class,” she said. “I started in the middle of February 2024. She went over the basics of baking sugar cookies, how to make royal icing, the different consistencies … I was hooked!”

Through trial and error, Mitchell has now figured out the icing consistency and sugar cookie recipes that work best for her.

“It’s definitely a learning curve with the royal icing,” she said. “On the bright side, if they don’t turn out just right, they still always taste good.”

And her husband has no problem taking those “practice” cookies to his job and sharing — while still keeping some for himself.

Her favorite cookie to bake is the vanilla almond sugar cookie. She also uses a basic royal icing recipe but cuts down on the sweetness just a bit with a little lemon juice.

And, of course, she has a lot of cookie cutters to make the fun variety of shapes.

“I was scrolling online for cookie cutters, and I came across this cute little pig,” Mitchell said. “I bought him and set a goal to one day make him. After maybe about two months of decorating, I decided to go for it. He turned out awesome.”

She sorts and stores the cutters in plastic storage bins, using a numbering system that coordinates with pages in a three-ring binder to find what she’s looking for.

“I am getting quite the collection,” she said. “I wouldn’t say people contribute to the collection, but if a friend has a request, I will buy the cookie cutter to make that shape. So in a roundabout way, I guess they do contribute.”

This talented grandmother particularly enjoys making fun decorated cookies for her grandchildren. Mitchell recalls that one day, one of their young friends who lives nearby was visiting and saw the beautiful cookies, but she was unable to eat them because she was allergic to red dye.

“It was so sad,” Mitchell said. “So I saw that Lolly’s was doing a class on dye-free colors. I knew I had to take it.”

She ordered the natural food colors, took the class, made the decorated cookies for the little girl, and took them to her home.

“Words can’t express how happy they made her,” Mitchell said. “She could finally eat the pretty cookies like everyone else. She gave me the biggest smile and hug!”

Mitchell truly enjoys sharing her talents with family and friends and said that it makes her very happy to see people enjoying what she creates.

“People love to eat,” she said. “I love the fact that I can combine all the ingredients from scratch into something delicious and fun. Our culture always seems to revolve around sharing meals with one another — I mean, who doesn’t love dessert?”