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Date: 4/13/2022
MONSON - If you’re craving something sweet for your taste buds, try Cookies by Ray, a scratch made bakery located in downtown Monson. All goods are baked fresh to order so customers can have the best quality cookies available.
Rachel Mengel is a gourmet cookie baker who runs the business out of her home. She makes six different types of cookies every week, as well as vegan, gluten-friendly and keto-friendly cookies.
After starting Cookies by Ray a year ago, Mengel already has a lot of regular customers. Her goal in starting this business was to earn extra income, she explained. A mom of three, she has two children fully in day care, which she said “any working mom knows it can be expensive.” Her oldest goes to day care part-time in the summer and holiday breaks. “I just wanted to get some extra money,” Mengel replied. “I’ve had a lot of repeat customers. I’ve been getting customers from the surrounding towns like Palmer and Ware. Even as far as Springfield and Chicopee and some recurring customers from Westfield.”
“Baking is definitely a passion of mine,” Mengel explained. “I’ve always wanted to own my own bakery. Being a mom of three and working as a full-time baker for Randall’s Farm in Ludlow has been hard to manage owning a business at the same time, so I decided to open one out of my house while I was on maternity leave with third child.”
All the cookies are four ounces in size and jam-packed with fun flavors, such as “Ray’s Fav” which is loaded with coconut, oats, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries and dark chocolate. The Cookie Monster is a blue vanilla cookie with chunks of cookie dough and Oreo pieces throughout the cookie. The fan-favorite, according to Mengel, is the chocolate chip.
“It’s a classic. They’re huge, soft and chewy and definitely addicting,” she said. Another favorite is the Pub cookie, a brown sugar cookie with potato chips, pretzels, chocolate chips and caramel bits.
She continued, “I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback. People walk by my house constantly and I’m always talking to people. It’s so amazing to actually get to know my customers, see their faces and find out exactly what they would be into so that I can incorporate those types of things into my menus every week.”
Mengel changes the flavors weekly, and also adds six new cookies every single week. She uploads what the flavors are going to be available for the upcoming week every Sunday on her Facebook page. This past March, she had St. Patrick’s Day specials and cookies such as an Irish creme cookie, an Irish soda bread, the “Darby O’Gill” which was a chocolate chip cookie loaded with Lucky Charm cereal marshmallows, a rainbow-colored sugar cookie with marshmallow clouds, pistachio cookies and a shamrock shake. This April, Mengel has all the fun sprinkles ready to go for Easter, but is keeping flavors top secret to surprise customers.
In the near future, Mengel said she would love to make Cookies by Ray a full-time business so she can stay home, watch her children grow and be home with them, while doing something she loves to do ¬ baking every day.
Even though she is a full-time baker, Mengel still bakes every day at her house and said it’s a part of her life. “I hope one day to develop my kitchen into something where I could make it more commercial, with bigger ovens and a little bit more space so I can offer more variety to my customers,” Mengel reiterated. “I would hope to have a food truck or a trailer where I could do farmer’s markets or drive around town and offer cookies like you would an ice cream truck. Those are definitely my goals that I hope to achieve.”
Customers can follow Mengel on social media, whether it be her Facebook page or Instagram, both named Cookies by Ray. Interested customers can send Mengel a message after looking through her weekly menu. Every day she posts pictures with cookies and lists the cookies she has available for the week. Mengel sells cookies individually, as a half of a dozen and at a dozen a time. She also offers catering orders and cookie platters.