Not many people can say they’re living a fangirl’s dream. But Emily Henegar can.
Henegar’s business, Cookie in the Kitchen, gave her the opportunity to make cookies for Harry Styles — a project she balanced in the middle of exam season during her senior year at Belmont University. When Bridgestone Arena slid into Henegar’s DMs to commission her ahead of Styles’ October 2021 concert, she turned to a trusted source — his devoted online fan base. After posting a video asking which poses and outfits she should re-create, Henegar’s social media seemingly blew up overnight.
“Harry Styles fans are insane in the best way,” she says.
Henegar’s cookies featured many of Styles’ classic looks, as well as Easter eggs geared toward avid listeners. “My aim is to both have the big, notable moments that are going to be very visually iconic or recognizable,” she says, “but also those things that the fans are going to notice.”
Henegar started Cookie in the Kitchen when she was just 11, sparking her lifelong dream of one day owning a bakery. She first made cookies for family and friends in her hometown, Atlanta, but she soon grew into partnering with record labels, venues and promoters to make artists feel celebrated during their Nashville tour stops. Names on her star-studded client list include Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Dolly Parton and Sabrina Carpenter.
“I made cookies for Dua Lipa in high school, and she posted about it on her Instagram, and that was the first pop star, compared to smaller indie bands, that I had baked for,” says Henegar. “My mom was like, ‘You really have something here.’”
Cookie in the Kitchen
How did she get discovered? By doing what any dedicated fangirl would — waiting outside concert venues, hoping to give her creations to the artists who inspired them.
“I had a big passion for wanting to capture their art and life in cookies, and it was fun,” says Henegar. “No one was telling me to do it. I wasn’t getting paid for it.”
Though she’s creative-minded, Henegar also enjoys running the business, steering her social media presence and partnering with brands. (She recently collaborated with Girl Scouts of the USA, re-creating its famous cookie boxes with her signature frosted touch.) “I love not only being a baker but an entrepreneur, which isn’t always the case for a creative like me,” she says.
When it is time to be creative, Henegar sets up shop in her brightly decorated home kitchen — an upgrade from the dorm kitchens she worked out of in college. As part of her research process, she goes down Wikipedia and Reddit rabbit holes to identify key moments in her subject’s life. Before transferring her ideas onto sugar cookies, she lays them out in Adobe Illustrator.
“My sister is a very traditional artist, and that never really clicked for my brain,” she says. “But graphic design is a lot more of how I think.”
Baking and hand-mixing icing takes three to four hours — essential for finding accurate color matches. “It’s surprisingly really technical too,” says Henegar. “There’s a lot of math involved in it.” After 10 to 30 hours total, her edible artwork is ready for green room dropoff.
Henegar’s motto: “Making people feel like celebrities and making celebrities feel like people.” Through capturing both big moments and tiny details from people’s lives, she aims to make customers feel seen — and even humanize celebrity clients who are often viewed as personas.
“It really is about who they are and encompassing their artistry and their personal life as best I can.”
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