*Since 2018, Emily has been shipping cookies nationwide and has even made cookies for Tiger Woods several times. In this photo, she puts the finishing touches on a recent cookie order.*

Emily Graham is exactly what you want your baker to be. She’s bubbly and bright-eyed, kind as can be, and you can tell creativity oozes from her brain. She stands at the counter precisely decorating tiny masterpieces while we talk. Her shop smells of sugary perfection, the lights are warm against the drizzly weather outside, and the décor surrounding us is lively and inviting. When you walk in the door of Graham Slam Bakery at 112 Pine Street downtown, you automatically crave something sweet. It’s impossible not to.

Emily’s career as a bakery owner started when she was a stay-at-home mom to her now 9-year-old daughter, Sydney. “I’d just had a baby, my husband worked full-time at Ledwell as a welder, and I needed a hobby, badly,” she said. “I was obsessed with cookie decorating videos on YouTube. I could sit and watch them for hours, and eventually I decided to try it for myself. I have always loved to draw and doodle, even as a kid, and eventually that turned into decorating cookies, first for myself, then for the public in 2015.”

*Emily admits that her daughter, Sydney, is her “why” in life. Here, they enjoyed having brunch in Downtown Texarkana.*

In the beginning, Emily called her cookie decorating a hobby, but she recalls a time that her creations were too pretty to eat. “Some of the first orders were hard to let go,” she said. “I was just so proud of them. I didn’t even want to deliver them. I know at least one of my cookies made it to a shadow box after a first birthday party for a client, and it’s held up this whole time. It’s nice to think about my work being preserved.”

In 2019, Emily made the leap to lease a building from Amanda Horton downtown, and the rest is history. “We were very busy that first year,” Emily recalls. “We’d have lines down the street some days, and our business just kept growing from there. We offered a whole lot of decorating classes and had so much fun.”

About a year after opening her doors to the public, Emily’s business took a hit along with the rest of the world, when the pandemic began. “We had to downsize our employees, because our shop was closed completely for a while during the height of COVID,” she said. “We tried curbside for a while, but the whole experience of a bakery is important. We needed our customers to see and smell and take it all in.”

*When Emily won “Best Christmas Cookie in America” in December 2017, she visited with “Good Morning America” anchors Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan on the set.*

So, Graham Slam Bakery focused on social media engagement and building a customer base. Those dividends have paid off enthusiastically, to the tune of about 18K followers. “Most of our audience, like 85%, are women between the ages of 25-55,” she said. “And so, it’s important for us to stay trendy. I follow a lot of online boutiques and Texas-based businesses for inspiration. I read tons of memes and digest a lot of pop culture to appeal to our audiences better each day. I want to provide cakes and cookies that people love.”

Emily and Anthony with their friends, Kim and Jeff Greening, owners of the Dragon’s Den in Genoa, Arkansas, catering a private party event. The two couples are the best of friends and have a Supper Club once a week to try out new dishes and desserts.

And she’s doing just that. From cookies inspired by the most recent Disney movie, “Encanto,” to paint-your-own kits, holiday themes and cookies with funny sayings, Emily is constantly churning out cookies and cupcakes and cakes that Texarkana loves. She also hosts decorating classes about once a month now and teaches her love of decorating to anyone who wants to learn. “It’s a fun activity to do with friends or by yourself,” she said. “I think it’s relaxing and provides a creative outlet that isn’t painting or drawing exactly. It’s not stressful, because if you mess up, just eat it.

“If I wasn’t doing this, I’d probably be in marketing” Emily said. “I love social media. Really, I love to be social. Getting to know the community and the people I’m baking for is my very favorite part.”

Emily and her husband, Anthony, spend 40-50 hours a week at the store, and another 15-20 answering inquiries, ordering goods, promoting, and taking orders. “Anthony is the master caker,” she said. “When I moved the business downtown and opened my own space, he realized quickly that it was a lot and said, ‘I have to help.’ He quit his job and has been our biggest asset since Day 1. He’s the best cook ... really the best at everything he does.”

Emily was born in Texarkana, and raised in Ashdown, Arkansas. She attended St. James Day School for nine years, and she and Anthony both graduated from Texas High School in 2005. After high school, Emily went to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville to become a Physical Therapy Assistant but moved back home to be closer to family. She and Anthony married in 2012 and found out they were expecting their daughter later that year.

*Emily used many texture tricks and tips when she made this recent Moana cookie creation.*

“Sydney is very interested in the bakery life,” Emily said. “She’s super creative and artistic, loves to draw. She’s a little bit bossy and sassy, kind of like me, and when there’s an order to be made while she’s around, she wants to do it herself. She says when she grows up, she wants to be a vet first and a bakery owner second. During the pandemic, she came up here to the shop with us, and Anthony cooked her fancy bakery breakfasts, and she brought her laptop for schoolwork. She didn’t know anything had changed—she was just living the good life.”

As she looks forward, Emily says she has been focusing on expanding her wedding business. “We participated in the Bridal Fair for the first time this year,” she said, “and it really paid off. We’ve booked several weddings. I told Anthony I’m really going to push him in that area, and he’s already done so many great things. I was very nervous at first, that the brides wouldn’t like what I brought to the table, or that we wouldn’t reach our intended audience, but we’ve had a very positive response.”

As relatable as that fear may be, Emily has already had a lot of experience with positive responses. In 2017, Emily won a baking and decorating contest on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and was named the 2017 Christmas Cookie Showdown winner. “I applied to compete, and when I received a call inviting me to New York, they asked me if I could get on a flight in less than 48 hours with seven dozen decorated cookies,” she said. “It was quite a whirlwind.”

Building on that success and notoriety locally has come very naturally to Emily in the family-owned business. “We’d eventually love to have our own space, a bigger space to spread out a little,” she said. “Right now it’s pretty tight, especially in the kitchen, but we’re very into brunch around here lately, and I’d love to have a true bakery set-up and sell more than just confections.”

Emily’s advice to other hobbyists who dream of turning their pastime into a hobby is to keep doing the thing. “Just keep on going,” she said. “Be consistent and persistent and do the hard things every day. You do have to show up and work, but just know that you won’t be perfect, and you will fail at something eventually; you just can’t give up.”

As simplistic as that may sound, it seems to have worked for Emily and Graham Slam Bakery. When they’re not running a wildly successful business, Emily, Anthony, and Sydney enjoying golfing as a family and traveling.

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Churning Out Sugary Perfection