What started as a bet between husband and wife has turned into a growing McKinney business built around scratch made cookies, creative flavors and a mission that reaches far beyond the kitchen.
“BAK'D started as a bet with my husband that it would fail. It is the single most expensive bet I continue to lose every day,” says Verandah McKinney, founder of BAK'D by McKinney Makes.
The idea began in 2020 while Verandah was still working in education and preparing to launch a new school in Fort Worth. Entrepreneurship was not part of her plan. But after starting a Twitch cooking channel called McKinney Makes, she began thinking about what she could create and realistically ship around the country.
The answer was cookies. Something already deeply connected to her story.
As a teenager, Verandah was selected for a study abroad trip to China, an opportunity her family could not easily afford. Her mother began baking and selling homemade cookies to help cover the cost while her father made deliveries. The experience gave Verandah her first look at entrepreneurship, even though she did not realize at the time how much it would shape her future.
“Cookies gave me an opportunity I would not have had otherwise, and it was time to pay it forward,” says Verandah.
That experience eventually inspired BAK'D, a name that represents Best ingredients, Affordable, Kindness and Delicious.
Today, the family-owned business operates with a small team but handles orders of all sizes, including one corporate event requiring more than 6,000 cookies.
Every cookie is made completely from scratch with familiar, quality ingredients and no shelf stabilizers or preservatives. The menu ranges from traditional favorites to combinations customers may not expect. Popular gourmet flavors include Snickerdoodle, Cranstachio, Lemon Blueberry, Reese’s and brown butter chocolate chip with sea salt.
Then there is Pineapple Habanero.
The flavor was suggested by Verandah’s father in 2023. She combined dried pineapple, habanero chili powder and white chocolate, despite initially doubting anyone would order it.
“People went absolutely crazy for it,” shares Verandah. “It’s been our best-selling summer flavor ever since.”
Her personal favorite stays closer to a classic combination. Reese’s, along with Half BAK'D and Double Half BAK'D, tops her list thanks to her love of chocolate and peanut butter. Custom sugar cookie customers have plenty of choices too, including vanilla cake, butter vanilla, salted caramel, lemon and honey lemon lavender.
BAK'D also specializes in custom printed cookies for corporate events, employee appreciation, conferences, grand openings, client gifts, weddings, showers and other celebrations. Customers can provide a logo or artwork, or BAK'D can create the design. Cookies are then baked, printed, individually wrapped and delivered. The team can even bring its cookie printer to events and print live for guests.
The goal is to make the cookie itself just as memorable as the design. Rather than treating a printed cookie simply as an edible canvas, BAK'D puts the flavor first, then adds the customized artwork.
While individual orders remain part of the business, corporate gifting and events have become its core. BAK'D works with companies, HR departments, insurance agencies, real estate and mortgage professionals, banks, nonprofits and event planners.
For Verandah, those relationships have reinforced an important lesson about business.
“Cookies are the product, but connection is the value,” says Verandah.
One Fortune 100 client began with an order of 42 dozen cookies for an employee appreciation event in 2022. Four years later, BAK'D produced 6,300 cookies for the company’s holiday event. Another corporate client chose BAK'D despite a higher price because the company consistently delivered its frozen cookie dough correctly and on time.
“I’ve also learned that being the cheapest shouldn’t be the business’s primary objective. Being worth it is,” says Verandah.
But the heart of BAK'D goes back to the opportunity cookies gave Verandah when she was 17.
“Every bite can take someone somewhere. I am living proof,” says Verandah.
As the company grows, she plans to launch The BAK'D Outdoors Foundation, designed to help girls and young women from historically underserved communities access travel opportunities and experiences that might otherwise be financially out of reach.
BAK'D is also looking ahead locally. Plans include expanding its recurring gift ready cookie bundles for businesses, growing its frozen cookie dough program for offices and eventually opening a dedicated production kitchen that will allow the company to handle even greater volume.
For Verandah, growth is important, but so is preserving the purpose behind every batch.
“I intend for this work to outlive me for generations to come,” says Verandah. “And it starts now, with simple pantry staples.”