For decades, when Julie Sexton left her Greenhaven home to catch the 6:20 a.m. train to the city for her jobs in consulting and compliance for top financial institutions, she was often carrying something extra in her bag: big homemade cookies.
Word would spread at the office. “She brought the cookies.” As colleagues bit into them, they would counsel: “You should start a business” — or in New York City-speak, “You need to monetize all this baking.”
Two years after retiring, and after nearly 30 years in the Greenhaven home she shares with husband Michael, the time was right. In early October at the Steinyfest Musical Festival in Mamaroneck, Sexton sold hundreds of cookies and for the first time, came up with a name and created a logo — “Whisked in Rye” was born.
From there, with a presence on Instagram that includes a button to order cookies, she was in business.
Sexton, 56, calls herself a self-taught baker and, bringing her business background to the fore, she offers three carefully chosen cookies: OG Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies, Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and S’mores Bars. Why “OG?” She said she often heard them described as “crack” and that had to be redefined as “OG.”
When she and her husband first moved into their house and designed their kitchen, she considered removing the center worktable, which was stainless steel. But she’s glad she didn’t; that table is now perfect for the many cookies coming out of her home ovens.
“I don’t like to be bored,” Sexton said, adding that she has rules for baking: Fresh ingredients; no freezing; each cookie is weighed on a digital scale to ensure uniformity, and she bakes each cookie for the same amount of time. Her favorite hack: When the cookies come out of the oven, she places a round cookie cutter around each. That ensures that each cookie is exactly like its mates. The chocolate chip cookies receive a sprinkling of Maldon Sea Salt flakes to cut the sweetness. The cookies, now sold to local corporations, galleries, and Rye-area residents, are made the day before delivery.
As Sexton weighs out the latest batch, she reflects on the decision to move from full-time corporate work to Whisked in Rye.
“I love the town of Rye,” she said. All the years of working in the city meant she was not in town during the day with other Rye moms. When she retired, she did take the first two years to travel — including to Portugal, London, Budapest, and Greece — but then she was ready to join the neighborhood walking group and make it a priority to meet friends for lunch.
Sexton also committed to visiting her aging parents at least once a month in Potomac, Md., where she grew up. She remembers visiting her grandparents in Taiwan fondly, grateful that she could speak to them in Taiwanese. She said her parents are proud of her and her new business, though she added that she comes from a long line of physicians. She broke the mold by going to business school. Her sister, who is a physician at the Centers for Disease Control, however, followed the family tradition.
As she bakes, Sexton said, she does not taste her wares, saying with a smile that she likes the cookies too much to eat them. When it comes to decorating her cookies, she said her daughter Lindsey, 25, is “much better than me.” Son Conner, 27, who just ran the New York City marathon in two hours and 38 minutes, is also quick at cookie decorating.
Looking ahead, she considers moving from her home kitchen to a local commercial kitchen. Sexton gestured to a flower arrangement she made that sat in a vase in the middle of her kitchen table. She said it is important to always have fresh flowers, noting how they can make a space special.
When she thinks about the future, Sexton said, it might include a coffee shop in Rye that offers her cookies, perhaps other pastries, and fresh flowers. It would be the kind of place she likes to inhabit and share.
“I like to create the feeling,” she said, “that it’s from my house to yours.”
