Like many people during the COVID-19 lockdown, Isabella Silver turned to a hobby — baking — to help pass the time.
Unlike many people who returned to their old lives after the lockdown lifted, Silver kept thinking about how much she enjoyed her time baking. Two years ago, she opted to turn it into a business that has gone beyond making treats.
The Queen Creek resident is the owner of Georgie’s Cookies, where selling cookies is only part of the business. Silver, 29, also started producing mixes people can use to recreate her recipes.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Silver followed her parents to Queen Creek while she remotely worked on a degree in psychology from Penn State during the lockdown.
“I had originally wanted to be an art therapist, but I ended up never really doing anything with it because I didn’t want to do more school,” she said. “I was ready to get in the workforce and just start my life and be independent.”
She began a four-year stint working remotely as a researcher for a New York-based fashion forecasting trend company, but the kitchen kept calling.
“I grew up baking with my grandparents, and that was always just a fun thing I did with them. During COVID I was really just baking a lot because there wasn’t a whole lot to do and I was really enjoying it and I never stopped,” she said. “Then I thought, ‘Could I make this into, you know, a living?’”
Silver’s creations took on a new dimension after she moved near the Queen Creek Olive Mill.
“I started experimenting with olive oil instead of butter in these cookies, and I had a really good reaction to that. I use their vanilla olive oil in pretty much any recipe that I use olive oil in,” she said. “I started experimenting with some of their citrus oils as well, such as the Valencia Orange olive oil and then the Myer Lemon oil. Then last Christmas I started making a hot cocoa cookie with their dark chocolate oil.”
She began, and still does, sell the cookies at various farmers’ markets and on her website, georgiescookies.com, as well as being a supplier for some businesses.
“However, I can’t make an entire living off just selling cookies. My dad and I, who helps me with the business, kind of started thinking this would be great for other people to do, but some people just don’t know how to follow measurements, or they are very intimidated by it. So, we kind of came up with the idea of doing prepackaged cookie mixes. Everything’s pre-measured out and included in the kit, and so you’re just following the instructions and putting everything into a bowl and just kind of mixing everything together,” she said.
Silver bakes her cookies in her home, but the packaged mixes are created and assembled in a commercial kitchen.
The kits, which can be purchased on her website and at the Queen Creek Olive Mill, come in two varieties. One contains all dry ingredients — flour, baking powder, sugar — and consumers are tasked with adding the “wet” ingredients that need to be mixed in.
“In other places, we actually sell the oil in the kit, and that’s in a little bag that has a seal on it. That’s already pre-measured out, and the back of the box tells you when to pour the oil into the mix,” Silver said.
For the Queen Creek Olive Mill, the partnership follows its missions to help businesses in the state.
“Seeing our Arizona-made olive oil become a key ingredient in their scratch cookie mixes is exactly the kind of local collaboration we love — it supports fellow Arizona small-businesses while introducing more people to the quality and versatility of true extra virgin olive oil,” stated John Rea, president of the Queen Creek Olive Mill, in an email.
Along with her website and the Queen Creek Olive Mill, Silver also sells her creations at the Eastmark Farmers Market in Mesa and from fall through spring at the Mint Market, 7729 E. Pecos Road in Queen Creek, and Agritopia in Gilbert.
Silver also has a distributor in Tempe that ships her products throughout the state, and she has signed onto a wholesale website. Meanwhile, a shop in Pennsylvania and an olive oil retailer in Manassas, Virginia, are also carrying her products.
Emily Thomson, who owns Manassas Olive Oil Company, discovered Silver’s products on the wholesale site Faire and thought the dry mixes would be a great fit for her business.
“I’ve made some before and put them out for people to try and people really liked them,” Thomson said. “Using the olive oil makes it makes a healthier cookie. It just gives it nice texture and they’re fluffy and they’re not overly sweet. They’re really, really nice cookies.”
Silver’s family helps out in various capacities, particularly as taste testers.
“If they don’t like something, then I’m not going to even try selling that. If they like it, then it will go to the markets, and I’ll see how well (the cookies) do there,” she said.
Her biggest assist comes from her father.
“He retired and he was building a lot of Lego model cars, and I realized that I could not do this by myself at all. So, he kind of volunteered himself and then I kept him on board. I definitely wouldn’t be able to do any of this without him,” Silver said.
By the way, Georgie’s Cookies is not named after her father, Steve Silver. It’s named after the dog that she rescued from a shelter 11 years ago.
“People will ask, ‘Is that Georgie?’ No, that’s just Steve. Georgie’s my dog. I have a little picture that I set up now at the markets,” Silver said. “I got her when I was 18. I never wanted to name anything after me. It felt kind of weird, and I really love my dog, so I figured why not Georgie’s Cookies?”
Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Janet Perez News Editor | Queen Creek &
San Tan Valley
Meet Janet Janet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.
Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.
Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science.
Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.
Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.
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