Kansas Citians will have a chance to see a local custom cookie creator on the Food Network’s Christmas Cookie Challenge show later this month.
Sara Siegele of Fountain City Sweets is a contestant on the network’s current season of the popular show.
“It was so fun,” says Siegele of her time on the show. “It feels pretty surreal that this thing that started off as a hobby has evolved into this incredible business and experience.”
In each episode, four contestants battle it out to win the grand prize of ten thousand dollars. Siegele will be featured in this season’s final episode airing Dec. 21 at 8 pm CST.
The stay-at-home mom has been baking and selling custom sugar cookies out of her Olathe home for the past five years and created her business Fountain City Sweets in 2020. Sold by the dozen, Siegele is consistently booked months in advance.
The Food Network contacted Siegele through her business’ Instagram. From there, she went through “a pretty long and tiring audition process” that lasted several months.
While the cookier can’t divulge too much information, she says it was “surreal,” meeting the judges – The Pioneer Woman‘s Ree Drummond and NFL-player-turned-chef Eddie Jackson – who judge each of the contestants’ cookies based on taste, texture and how well they’re decorated according to the theme. The episode’s theme is the holiday movie classic, A Christmas Story.
Siegele has been busy since filming the show. She’s since made gender reveal cookies for Chief’s Mecole Hardman and for the charity benefit Thundergong!, hosted by Jason Sudeikis. Siegele made cookies in the likeness of characters from Sudeikis’ hit show Ted Lasso.
Siegele is booked through the holiday season but to take a peek at her work in person, head to Brookside’s Hudson & Jane where her Union Station gingerbread house (recreated as a candy factory) sits.
The massive gingerbread house joins others in a competition for Holidays in Crestwood, an event that benefits the Child Protection Center of KC.
“It’s by far the largest 3D cookie structure I’ve ever made,” says Siegele.
The gingerbread houses will be available to view through December 6.
The only opportunity to snag a few Fountain City Sweets holiday cookies, will be at a pop-up at the NextHomie Holiday Boutique on Thursday, Dec. 7, 4:00 to 7:00 pm at Knights of Columbus Hall (11221 Johnson Dr., Shawnee, KS). The event benefits Eden Village, a not-for-profit that houses KC’s homeless.
