Olivia Hops - The Edible Cookie Dough Cookbook: 75 Recipes for Incredibly Delectable Doughs You Can Eat Right Off the Spoon

My road to mixing cookie dough all day long wasnt a straight one. From the time I was eleven years old, I dreamed of becoming a sports journalist. And when, only seven years later, I was sitting in my cubicle at The NFL Network editing game highlights, it seemed as if my dreams had come true faster than I had imagined they could.

I was eighteen years old and working at the company of my dreams, a company most football-loving fans would love to work at. But I wasnt cutting highlights with a smile on my face. What I thought would be an exciting job turned out to be anything but.

There were many reasons why I hated the job I had wanted so badly only a few months prior, but to put it simply, I was terribly bored. As someone who has struggled with severe anxiety my entire life, being bored made me miserable, and being miserable made me anxious. It was a suffocating cycle, and I knew I couldnt take much more of it.

One day, my boss called me into his office and proceeded to scold me, claiming my work production had fallen. Even though my anxiety was at one of its worst points in my life, I would never allow myself to slack off. Yes, I was no longer enthusiastic about coming into work, but I would have gone to battle to prove that the quality of my work had not changed. I had always been a hard worker, and if I werent, I wouldnt have gotten the job I had at the age I was. I attempted and failed to hold back tears as I tried to tell my boss I was simply dealing with lifelong anxiety and depression. I apologized for keeping to myself and promised I had never allowed my work to falter. When he proceeded to tell me everyone gets sad sometimes so suck it up, I proceeded to quit.

I had just quit my dream job, but I wasnt upset about it. I felt a tremendous relief when I walked away from the cause of my anxiety for the last time. God was telling me it was time for a new dream.

Having moved from San Diego to Los Angeles for the job, I knew I needed to figure out another way to make money. (I would have moved home, but I had met a boy. How clich of me!) I had decided I wanted to be my own boss in hopes that it would help with my anxiety. I had always loved baking and figured that was the way I would go. I attempted for a month to sell baked goods online before I realized my product didnt stand out in the sea of home bakers in LA.

I wasnt successful at this first venture, and I started to look for a better idea. I was anxiously watching my bank account drain too quickly when a good friend came to Los Angeles to visit me. We went to lunch by the beach and then wandered into an ice cream shop where they mixed in the toppings. As I ate my cake batterflavored ice cream with rainbow sprinkles mixed in, an idea popped into my head. What if there were a shop where you could order cookie dough, customized like ice cream, just the way you like it. Eating cookie dough while baking had always been one of my favorite things. And if I did it, there had to be other people who loved doing it, too.

For the next month, I researched how to make cookie dough safe to eat and what my competition looked like. I tested lots of recipes. I created a name and a logo, designed a website, and signed up for social media accounts. It was April 2015 when Unbaked: A Cookie Dough Bar launched as an online shop selling customizable edible cookie dough. For months, I barely had enough money to pay rent. I only had a couple of orders a week, but I was happy, and most importantly, not anxious.

It took a while, but Unbaked went from 100 followers on Instagram and five orders a week to 40,000 followers and hundreds of orders a week. My one-woman company (run with the help of my parents, my sister, my boyfriend, and my friend Katie) was suddenly a hot trend, being featured on the Food Networks social media pages, in the New York Times, at the Museum of Ice Cream in Los Angeles, in LA Weekly, and more.

Unbaked has grown so much in the few years its been in business that I had to hire real employees (instead of just forcing my family to help me). I now have two part-time employees helping me in the kitchen, Erin and Jonah. Erins specialty is working the giant 20-quart (19 L) mixer (which we have named Karen). Jonah, who lives life on the autism spectrum, labels the jars of dough, tapes boxes together, and writes the notes customers request to be included in their order. They help the ship run smoothly, and without them, the business and this cookbook wouldnt be possible.

I couldnt have realized my new dream without the help of my family and friends and all of you cookie dough lovers out there. You gave me the chance to do something that makes me happy: mixing cookie dough all day.

I want to give you the chance to make that same dough in your own kitchen. In the recipes that follow, youll learn how to make all of the flavors we offer, along with many more. My sister Natalie and the aforementioned Erin have helped me taste-test all of the recipes in these pages, and they approve!