Cookies by Design

The smell of fresh baked cookies wafts into Mountain Brook Village as its newest bakery prepares for its busiest season: Valentine’s Day. Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, Snicker Doodle, Oatmeal Royale, Sugar Cookies and top-seller Millionaire (chocolate chips, oats and pecans) cookies can all be purchased individually or in one of the business’ signature cookie baskets.

Cookies by Design, a 20-year old cookie bakery and delivery company, opened in the former Big Sky Bread location in December. It customizes cookies for teams, photos, business cards, holidays, dance recitals, babies and any other occasion imaginable.

“The community has been so welcoming,” Owner Stacy Lang said. “Even other business owners have come in to get cookies and introduce themselves.”

Lang first fell in love with the location while running through Mountain Brook Village as she trained for marathons. She runs every day, but she has always had a sweet tooth.

“If I bring anything to Christmas dinner, it’s always a dessert,” she said. “I have always loved to bake, and it’s always been my goal to own a bakery.”

Lang ordered cookie baskets from Cookies by Design, one of 100 franchises nationwide, during her corporate career with Alabama Gas. She even, like many customers, still has a cookie with her son’s name on it that was in a baby gift basket she received from the company.

And so, when she learned the previous owner was interested in selling, Lang bought in. A few months later, she moved the location from Highway 31 in Vestavia to the Village.

Many of Cookies by Design’s longtime customers live in Mountain Brook and off Highway 280, so the location was perfect for gaining foot traffic.

In addition to its classic cookies, the bakery now offers cupcakes, brownies and scones, and they hope to expand their display case offerings in the future.

“I wanted to create more of a hometown cookie shop where you can sit down and have coffee and milk and socialize,” she said. “It’s kind of like Starbuck’s, but not.”

Lang said they sell a birthday basket and a “speedy recovery” basket of turtle-shaped cookies every day. Some baskets, like the reindeer at Christmas, come with cookies in a special Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cookie Dough.

Cookie Cakes are popular for birthdays, especially as they, like any of their products, can be delivered instead of requiring a trip to the mall. Most people order Chocolate Chip, but any flavor is available.

Cookies by Design also has a pre-sliced cookie dough fundraising program.

Lang said her three boys, ages 10, 14 and 21, gladly reap the benefit of cookie decorating mess-ups.

“They love the Chocolate Chip, and anything with lots of icing and sugar, and they can’t wait to work in the shop one day.” On the day of the Mountain Brook Christmas Parade, the younger two walked around passing out cookie samples.

Lang has noticed the crowds of kids around the Village after school and hopes that they soon discover what gets her own boys so excited to come in the shop.