CedarGap Creations Cookies

Our family has been making old fashioned yummy style desserts for sell for well over 50 years. My Mama is the original baker and Teacher to the rest of us. She is now 72, and still involved in our business as a MENTOR of old fashioned recipes.

For as long as I can remember she baked the best hot yeast rolls, breads, biscuits, cornbread and all types of pies and cakes. I was raised in a small poor neighborhood and everyone traded my Mama their foods for her baking. I remember carrying the goodies to everyone's houses. We were just as happy to try their foods too.

Mama's Oldest Sister, Aunt Burtie had a small diner in downtown Abilene on Oak street. She asked my Mama to make all her pies, cakes, breads,and speciality baking to sell to the customers. My Mama did all the baking at our home. I remember she got paid around $3 per pie. These were big deep dish pies, not like the ones you get at the supermarket bakery.

Being the oldest child at home, I was her helper. I remember vividly about the age of 7 holding the hand mixer and beating the meringue for her pies. Lemon, Coconut cream, chocolate, and cobblers are my biggest recollection. The smells were glorious, and after the pies were finished and toasted to perfection we got to put them inside a bright white box for transporting to the diner. The year was around 1965.
In 1968 at the age of 10 our family went thru a crisis and my Dad was diagnosed with cancer. My Mama had to go to work outside the home for us to survive. I was paid by the State to cook and clean after school for my 2 brothers and sister younger than myself. I was 10 years old when I started this responsibility, I loved it and wanted to help my Mama.

I missed my Mama, and wanted to bake special things for her that I had seen her baking. I tried to always make at least one special treat, cake, pie, or something each Sunday when she worked. Her vivid memory is a flower basket cake for Mother's Day. She still talks about it to my girls. She would come home and I had it displayed on the table, everyone waiting for her to eat.

At the age of 15 I made my first 4 tier wedding cake. No Fondant, no pillars, just a stacked buttercream cake with handmade roses For my cousin Paula's wedding. No rods to keep it from sliding. It still looked great. Then I made one for my Cousin Jerry's wedding. Then my sister's wedding, and then another cousins. All for the fun, No Pay. As the years continued I continued to practice new designs, but keeping to my Mama's favorites.

When my oldest daughter Miranda was born, we moved to my Husband Bartley's rural Family ranch property. In the family for well over 100yrs. It is in an old Indian crossing called CedarGap. No post office so no longer on the map. But still here. The Gap between the Callahan Divide and Buffalo Gap Hills. Very serene, very remote,lots of giant oaks, cedar and wildlife. A great big beautiful piece of land to build a life and raise children. This is where I decided to bring the two families together into one business. CedarGap and our Creations and cookies.

As my daughters were growing I knew the importance of allowing them in the kitchen. They were taught everything from a very early age. They are the new Generation of CedarGap Creations cookies. The world has changed so dramatically in all directions in their lifetime. The Internet instead of the diner. Fondant istead of plain buttercream. And now a cookie that can be shipped around the world and still taste awesome. It can be made to look like almost anything. Even a photograph. Pretty enough to be a gift? Amazing.

I cherish the opportunity and history I have carried with me thru the years from my Mama. I hope in some way I have been able to pass it on to my daughters and one day they can say they have had baking in their family for well over one hundred years. And hopefully then a new generation will have taken over and continued our history into a new future, whether for business or just for the taste and the fun.

Cynthia (Cowart) Dick