In many homes, baking a dozen cookies is an accomplishment. But for Samantha Anderson of Confections of a Navy Wife, 12 is just a warm-up. Making 10 to 20 dozen exquistely decorated cookies each week, her kitchen runs like a bakery, where flour flies, the mixer and oven stay busy, and the smell of fresh cookies is practically part of the décor. The finished product sets the stage and makes a personalized statement for any event.
Raised in Southern California as a horse-loving, barrel racing, farm girl who loved raising animals, she never tried her hand in the kitchen growing up. She and her husband Jason met in elementary school, and even though he was her childhood crush, they didn’t start dating until after high school and got married after he finished boot camp.
Samantha admits that she wasn’t sure what being a Navy wife meant, but she quickly adjusted as they moved to Virginia, then to Washington, and finally to Coronado in November 2021. A hairdresser by trade, she had never baked anything until she took an online cookie class with a friend during the pandemic.
“It started as a hobby to give me personal time while raising two small boys, especially when my husband was deployed,” she shares. Soon, she was baking every day for her friends and family to sample different recipe tweaks, as she perfected her proprietary ultimate sugar cookie recipe. Her passion grew as the orders started pouring in.
While living in Coronado, she crafted Valentine’s Day cookies with humorous military-related themes, and they sold out immediately. She then posted on the Coronado Happenings Facebook group, and her business, Confections of a Navy Wife, grew exponentially as she created custom cookies for birthdays, sports teams, military events, baby showers, and many other occasions.
Her business allows her to stay home with her children, one of whom she homeschools, and permits a flexible schedule for multiple sports, music, and other extracurricular activities. She and Jason sponsor the Coronado Little League and are on the board. “It’s important for me to be a constant for my kids, especially since my husband is often deployed,” notes Samantha.
Juggling her busy schedule, she typically needs about a month’s notice for detailed orders, although she says it never hurts to ask, because there might be an earlier opening. Her preference is small jobs, from one to ten dozen cookies, rather than larger corporate orders.
Every order is unique and she tries not to repeat the same designs. To accomplish this, she has a 3-D printer which allows her to customize her cookie cutters. With many tools of the trade, this true artisan uses her trusty KitchenAid, edible markers, edible glitter, icing transfers, a scribe to pull the icing smooth, a dehydrator to keep the icing puffy, and speed drying time between layers, as well as a host of other utensils. She has hundreds of cookie cutters, organized by theme, stashed in her garage. Her favorite cookies to make are military themes, with the SEAL Trident, and red, white, and blue flag stars proving to be her most popular.
Handcrafting these tasty works of art takes patience. Samantha shares that from baking to drying time, simpler designed cookies take 24 hours, and that extends into two days for more detailed, multi-layered cookies. Specialized character cookies can require up to 10 layers, to create the desired effect.
In addition to creatively decorated sugar cookies, she also offers chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip cookie cakes. In the past, she’s hosted private and public cookie decorating classes, and says, “Anybody can become a cookie artist to a degree, but the recipe is what truly sets you apart.”
She loves collaborating with customers to create cookies designed specifically for their event. Some popular themes include the Grinch, tennis, beach, flowers, surfing, Fourth of July, baseball, Hawaiian motifs, and Pokémon. Her cookies, made with butter and love, taste as good as they look and start at $40 a dozen. She offers porch pick up in Strand military housing.
Follow this wizard with a whisk on Instagram @confectionsofanavywife and watch for holiday cookie pop-ups.
