Swoon Cookie Crafters
Sofia Varanka Hudson has created some interesting cookies at Swoon Cookie Crafters (1668 Jefferson St., Suite 100, Kansas City, Mo. 913-687-6233, justswoon.com), where iced sugar cookies are made to custom specifications. Her Instagram feed is full of elaborate designs: art deco-style martinis, mermaids, flamingos, even cookies decorated to look like hamburgers and hot dogs for a grill-themed birthday party.
It all began, Hudson says, when her mother-in-law started making cookies on First Fridays for her furniture gallery in the Crossroads Arts District. In 2007, the shop relocated outside the Crossroads. Clients kept asking for the First Friday cookies, and Swoon was born.
“Once we started promoting them, people started asking for weirder and weirder things,” Hudson says.
The most ridiculous orders come from Hudson’s beloved hair stylist. “I’ve made animal feces for her for several different occasions,” Hudson admits. “She had shoulder surgery one Thanksgiving and thanked her doctors with gingerbread pilgrims with their limbs broken off and reset in bandages.”
Until the last holiday season, all several hundred orders Swoon took per year were completely custom. This year, Swoon launched its first e-commerce site with standard orders for basic celebrations.