Simple Simon Bakery makes thousands of Christmas cookies every year, here's how

APPLETON — Co-owner and baker Scott Simon clocks in at 4 a.m. six days out of the week to start the day-long process of baking for Simple Simon Bakery.

Christmas season is the bakery's second-most popular holiday, and the demand for its signature Christmas sugar cookies has already begun.

Simple Simon's sugar cookie dough recipe goes back three generations to the Simon family's grandmother, Gladys Simon, and the same goes for the satin icing recipe they dip their cookies in.

The bakery, 218 E. Wisconsin Ave., was first opened in 1967 by Slyvester Simon, it was then passed down to his sons Richard and William Simon who ran the shop until Richard's children Scott Simon and Dawn Ebert took over. Three generations later, the shop still uses most of the traditional recipes established when the bakery was opened.

"This has been our tradition of how we do Christmas cookies forever, and we've been doing this for 56 years," Ebert said.

Simple Simon is best known for the unique way its cookies taste and are presented.

Here's how the bakery makes their popular dipped Christmas cookies.

What makes Simple Simon's Christmas cookies so unique?

The entire process of cookie making is done by hand inside the bakery. Simon starts off by making a huge bowl of the signature cookie dough. He then rolls that dough out into sheets and, using the Christmas themed cutters, hand-cuts about eight to 10 racks of 25 dozen cookies.

These cookies are then baked and, once cooled, can be moved to the decoration process.

This is when general manager and expert cookie dipper, Marley Werner, dips and scrapes the icing off of over two thousand cookies a day. The icing, which is also made in-house, is kept on a double broiler so that it is easier to work with.

Werner has been with the bakery for 15 years, and has been appointed the fastest and most efficient cookie dipper there.

"I'll dip them all in one day and usually my breakage is very minimal," Werner said. "You can be fast, but if you're breaking half of them on the tray then you're moving too fast."

While some bakeries might choose to use royal icing for their cookie decorating needs, Ebert and her staff have found a more efficient way to decorate.

"It's just not our forte, we specialize in quantity," Werner said. "Royal icing is very time consuming and delicate, there's no way that I would be able to do 100 of those cookies in a two day span."

For cookies with a little more design to them than just icing and sprinkles, the bakery uses a homemade buttercream icing to pipe decorations.

Ebert said Christmas is the bakery's second-most busy holiday — just recently eclipsed by paczki day — and they make treats around the clock to keep up with the demand.

Besides the traditional Christmas sugar cookies, they also sell large numbers of gingerbread and molasses dough and cookies, butter cookies, fruit cakes and peppermint bark.

Additionally, the bakery sells all the ingredients needed for customers to make their own Christmas cookies at home including the raw cookie dough in different flavors like sugar cookie, chocolate chip, peanut butter and M&M, the icing and the sprinkles.

Werner said that while some bakeries might put a daily cap on how much product they put out a day, the staff at Simple Simon makes sure they never run out of Christmas cookies during the holiday season, making more throughout the day if necessary.

Pre-made and decorated Christmas cookies can be purchased by the dozen for $14 a box.

Simple Simon uses baked goods to help better its community

Another way the bakery tries to stay connected with its community is by helping local schools and churches with fundraising events.

From November through December, Simple Simon helps about six to 10 organizations each year by selling them baked goods for a low price. The organizations then re-sell the products and keep the profit and put it toward fundraising goals.

"The past two years, we have taken on a lot more — especially because the other bakeries no longer offer that," Werner said. "We've learned that we have the crew and the skill to get it done, so we've taken on as many as we can."

Fundraising opportunities through the bakery can be found on its website.

Other orders and inquires can be made at simplesimonbakery.com.

Reach Jelissa Burns at 920-453-5107 or jburns1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @burns_jelissa or on Instagram at burns_jelissa.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Simple Simon Bakery in Appleton sells thousands of Christmas cookies