Meet Lori S., our Spotlight Mom for February 2023!

Saturday morning we received our first cookie delivery from Brown Butter Bakery, a cottage bakery located in Willis, TX, and – OH MY STARS – these tender, beautiful, slightly puffy cookies were downright delicious! I promised myself I’d have just a couple of nibbles (I’m still trying to shed holiday pounds). But then I went back to the box on the kitchen island… and back to the box again… and then I taped the box shut… and minutes later I was ripping the tape off…and…  Well, let me just tell you I was a whole mess over this indulgent, delightful cookie delivery!

When Megan arrived at my door, it felt like Christmas! She greeted me with a big smile and she even let me snap this photo:

Our delivery included the following flavors: Snickerdoodle, Chocolate Chunk, and a couple of Valentine’s flavors – Red Velvet Smore’s and Burning Love.

Brown Butter Bakery delivers their fresh cookies from Willis all the way south to The Woodlands and areas nearby and in between! They're a convenient way to get your cookie fix on, all while supporting a small local family business.

I had seen photos of Brown Butter Bakery cookies ahead of time, so I figured I’d really like the chocolate chunk cookies. I couldn’t have guessed how moist and richly textured these cookies would actually be! They were soooo delicious! From what I could tell, the chocolate chunk includes 3 different types of high quality chocolate, and you can actually see the morsels and chunks throughout the cookies, so it’s not some melted amorphous mess, but rather, it’s a beautiful work of art!

The cookies are soft with a bit of a crust on the bottom, so if you’re cutting a cookie in half to share (but why would you?) once your knife gets to the bottom of the cookie, you’ll need to give it an extra wiggle to cut through. Its perfect for a bit of tender crunchiness. And they’re topped with just the right amount of flaky sea salt for a decadent, gourmet touch.

The Red Velvet Smore’s was another of my favorites. It’s a Red Velvet cookie with the added deliciousness of milk chocolate chips and a freshly toasted marshmallow on top. Genius!

The snickerdoodle cookies were surprisingly delicious as well. I say “surprising” because when my kids get snickerdoodle from those other places, I’m never tempted to try them (snickerdoodles are kinda boring in my opinion), but these cookies were richly colored and slightly darker than most snickerdoodles I’ve met, so I gave them a try. Sooo good! These are actually the cookies that I kept going back to the kitchen island for!

When a mom eats a Brown Butter Bakery cookie, the ethical thing to do is to cut it in 4 pieces and share it with any other nearby household members. I mean, the cookies are large and thick, so they are plenty shareable. But when did ethics become a part of cookie-eating? Take that cookie into your bedroom closet, close the door, and enjoy it alone with a glass of cold milk. The kids (and hubby!) will be none the wiser!

I wanted to hear more about the family behind Brown Butter Bakery, so meet Kyle, Megan, Briley, & Colt Brewer, and enjoy the Brown Butter Bakery Story as told from Megan:

The Brown Butter Baker story

Our story began about 30 years ago, when Kyle, was just a boy. One Christmas, he was tasked with making sugar cookies for the holiday celebration. It was a simple bag-mix of cookie dough, but everyone seemed to love them and told him what a great job he did. This is what sparked his love of baking. This love carried over through his life, and soon after graduating from Texas A&M, Kyle and Megan met.

Shortly after we married in 2014, we found out we were expecting our daughter, and life led us to the Conroe area. Unsatisfied with the local dessert options at the time, Kyle began his journey of creating the perfect chocolate chip cookie. For months he tested different ingredients and ratios, trying to get the taste and texture just right. After finding the perfect balance, he shared the cookie with family and friends, and it quickly became a highly requested item. (This is still what his sister requests for Christmas each year!)

Like many families, baking and cooking has always played such an important role in our home. When our daughter was a toddler, we constantly had her in the kitchen, helping us with any and every recipe we knew she could handle. Once a week, Kyle and her plan a whole menu for the evening, and they make anything Briley can dream up!

Fast forward to 2022, our family had grown again, and we found ourselves in a position where we needed a little more income, and I had the idea to begin a cottage bakery. Though reluctant, Kyle agreed to start a baking business with my encouragement and support. Thus, Brown Butter Bakery was born!

We began offering our gourmet cookies to our neighbors in The Woodlands Hills, and they were a hit! Now, we attend local markets, have pop-ups at other local small businesses, and we’ve even had the honor to work with some big organizations such as Howard Hughes, the National Hot Rod Association, and the Montgomery County Fair Association.

Each member of our family holds a special role in our operation. Kyle, of course, is the baker while Megan runs the day-to-day operations, communications, and marketing. Our children are our official and most honest taste-testers – we know when they truly love a new cookie, and when they would prefer to do without!

With every box we sell, a portion is held back to help provide donations for local fundraisers. We have had the distinct pleasure to provide cookies to assist fundraisers which benefited The Woodlands Pavilion Scholarship Program, Willis Education Foundation, CF Swing for a Cure, and even private benefits to help local families battling the worst unexpected twists life can bring such as cancer and unexpected deaths.

Our mission is simple: Create and serve the most delicious gourmet cookies you've ever tasted and give back to our community in the process.

The next time I receive a Brown Butter Bakery cookie delivery, I’m telling Megan to go around to the back bedroom window and knock gently. Or better yet, I’ll meet her down the street. The other folks in my house don’t need to know these beautiful, delicious cookies have been delivered! You guys have to go check them out! Here's the link to the website to order.

If driving outside of your Woodlands bubble is unthinkable to you, they you’re really missing out! When you discover all the community programming offered for FREE through Harris County Precinct 3, you just might think you’ve struck gold! Precinct 3 covers a large portion of Suburban North and Northwest Houston, with many of the events taking place at parks along Spring Creek Greenway, just minutes away from The Woodlands. (These areas were formerly under HC Precinct 4, but the maps / borders changed in recent years.)

My family and I recently enjoyed the Park After Dark "Fireside Storytelling" event, and in the past, my kids and I have signed up for canoeing, kayaking, archery, and more. All have been wonderful experiences!  The events were very lightly attended (just a handful of families during our times out there, so no lines or crowds), the equipment is always clean, and the hosts are very informative!

The last two holiday seasons haven’t been normal for anyone – but no one has been as impacted by the effects of this pandemic like children and local businesses. A Spring/Woodlands based dance studio, Texas Academy of Dance Arts (TADA) is intent to bring the magic of the holidays back to children and their friends and family, all while supporting more than 15 local businesses along with Interfaith of the Woodlands, a non-profit social service agency providing numerous programs and services to meet the needs of The Woodlands and surrounding area. TADA's 8th annual production of  "The Nutcracker" is scheduled for Saturday, December 3 and Sunday, December 4 at The Woodlands College Park High School. 

Have you heard of the Teal Pumpkin Project? It’s a simple way to make trick-or-treating safer and more inclusive for the 1 in 13 children living with food allergies, and many others impacted by intolerances and other conditions. 

I absolutely LOVE this project idea! All you have to do is place a teal pumpkin on your doorstep that signals that, in addition to candy, you offer non-food trinkets and treats that are safe for all trick or treaters.

The Woodlands Arts Council (TWAC) revealed six exciting new Art Benches on October 13 at a celebration attended by artists and underwriters held at the Woodforest Club at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. This brought the total Art Benches in The Woodlands to thirty.

“We are delighted to share that six new Art Benches have been installed by The Woodlands Township and are ready to be enjoyed by our community,” said James Stilwell, President of the TWAC Board. “We congratulate the artists and underwriters on their admirable contribution to The Woodlands collection of public art.”

If you head north on Interstate 45 (from The Woodlands) for about half an hour, you’ll eventually get to the all-white Sam Houston Statue that you’ve probably passed countless times before. Mr. Houston seems to appear out of nowhere, a ghostly, thought-provoking vision that I've grown to really look forward to approaching.  After admiring the statue from the highway year after year on our trips to Dallas and beyond, we finally decided to stop and have a closer look. It was worth it!