OCTOBER 2 0 2 1 I BOROMAG.COM 29
@VALSCOOKIECANVAS_
Raysa Sanchez,
Val’s Cookie Canvas
Halloween is Raysa Sanchez’s busiest
time of year for cookie orders —
even more than Christmas.
It was also the season that she
debuted her cookies outside of
at-home experiments. The ghostshaped
cookies she made for a PTA
bake sale “were a big hit,” she said.
Sanchez’s entry into baking is tied
with motherhood. She started thinking
about party planning when she
was pregnant with her first child.
From there, she discovered baking.
“I would spend lots of my pregnancy
days Googling images of children’s
party’s décor, and what stood
out to me the most were the detailed
treats,” Sanchez said.
She learned to bake cookies in
2010 while she was pregnant and has
taken tutorials and online classes. By
the time her daughter Vallerie was
born, she had a go-to cookie recipe
and a list of over 100 items and characters
she wanted to turn into treats.
Her business, Val’s Cookie Canvas, is
named for her daughter.
Sanchez specializes in hand-painted
cookies and also gets inspiration
from Vallerie, as well as from comics,
graffiti and abstract art.
Social media trends like hot chocolate
bombs also inspired her to make
her own with cocoa and instant latte
and cappuccino mixes inside. Her
DIY cookie sets, like graffiti and mural
themed cookies that come with
an edible ink pen, are best-sellers
during the holidays.
During the pandemic, Sanchez
started delivering orders to her clients
with a mascot or someone in costume
for the holidays. She also added
smoking pumpkins — real, carved
pumpkins with colored smoke bombs
— to Halloween orders.
“I remember clients calling me and
writing to me to thank me because I
brought joy to them and their children
to their homes when the city
was under quarantine,” Sanchez
said. “Now I want to continue to do
this for every holiday.”
This fall, flavors like pumpkin spice
with cream cheese-flavored royal icing,
cinnamon roll and vanilla bean
royal icing, and gingerbread with
turbinado sugar flakes and buttervanilla
royal icing, among others, will
be on the menu.
Sanchez loves selling cookies as a
vendor at festivals; her first one was at
the annual Halloween Harvest Festival
at Socrates Sculpture Park, and she
looks forward to returning on Oct. 30.
Photos by Raysa Sanchez
/BOROMAG.COM
