BY EVA MAYS
In 2014, Cassandra Hamilton’s husband was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease that would require many medical interventions and, eventually, a transplant.
Hamilton took an oilfield job to financially support her family during the crisis. However, she was laid off in 2020 after the couple’s second son was born.
“I’m going to have to do something,” Hamilton remembers thinking at the time. “We had no money coming in.”
Around that time, Hamilton took some informal baking lessons from her cousin, who runs a small baked goods company out of her home in eastern Pennsylvania.
“I would always bake with my family when I was small, but never anything serious. I definitely had never baked a rollout sugar cookie before in my life,” Hamilton admitted. But she put lots of “time and love” into learning the craft, making cookies for friends and family in order to perfect her technique.
Once her husband was stable after receiving his transplant in 2021, Hamilton began baking in earnest to supplement the disability payments. She intended for Cassandra’s Cookies to be a side-hustle, but “it kind of exploded,” she said with a laugh.
Hamilton now makes anywhere from 18-25 dozen cookies per week for children’s parties, corporate events, seasonal celebrations and more.
Cassandra’s Cookies is a cottage industry, meaning the foods are prepared in Hamilton’s home. Such companies are overseen by the West Virginia Department of Agriculture and are exempt from state laws that regulate restaurants or other food-based businesses.
West Virginia is considered to be one of the best states in which to operate a cottage industry. In 2019, Gov. Jim Justice signed SB 285, which allows West Virginians to sell almost any kind of shelf-stable homemade food at any venue within the state, including directly from their homes or through online sales to buyers in West Virginia, with no upper limit on sales.
Hamilton said working out of her home kitchen in Maidsville with a KitchenAid mixer and a standard oven kept startup costs low for her company, although she hopes to upgrade to commercial appliances someday.
Fontana Miller, of Core, discovered Cassandra’s Cookies on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/cassandras_cookies) when she was seeking cookies for her son’s birthday party.
“Once we saw her work in person and tasted her cookies, we fell in love,” Miller said. Impressed with the final product, Miller has now used Cassandra’s Cookies for many events.
“Cassandra makes every experience so personal, working to make the cookies look like exactly what you’re envisioning for your event,” Miller said. “You can tell from her work that she spends a lot of time trying to make the cookies you order special.”
Custom orders can be placed through the form on the website, https://www.cassandrascookies.com/custom-order. Hamilton is happy to make batches with gluten-free ingredients but cannot guarantee that no contamination has taken place.
Hamilton hopes to offer private cookie-decorating classes out of her home in the coming months. She will also be bringing Cassandra’s Cookies to the Spring Maker’s Market, set for 11 a.m.-5 p.m. April 30 at Mylan Park
“I am just so happy and blessed to have gotten to this point,” Hamilton said. “I can use my baking to support my family and give back to the community too.”
Cassandra’s Cookies recently provided baked goods for a fundraiser for a woman in need of a transplant, just as her husband was.
“I think that brings me the most joy, to be able to give back to a cause that is near and dear to my heart.”
