Ellen Pignatiello is a self-confessed chocolate lover. And she’s found herself the perfect career. As the owner of Cookie Cupboard Gourmet Dough, a business she bought 14 years ago, the former executive recruiter is surrounded by the stuff every day. Her employees prepare batters and doughs for muffins, brownies, and all kinds of cookies including chewy chocolate chip, mint chocolate chunk, double Dutch chocolate chip, and sugar cookies laced with M&M’s. Quality control requires regular sampling.

 

Beyond helping her mother as a child, Pignatiello was no butter and sugar expert. But she got on the job training from a master baker who was on staff for 11 years, and says that working with him “was like going to pastry school.” Together they created an “inventory” of 300 recipes for their from-scratch doughs and batters. The official corporate motto is “We make it, you bake it.”

 

The Cookie Cupboard’s customers are primarily gourmet grocery stores, caterers, private label clients, and schools and groups that use the products for fundraising, but Pignatiello also sells directly to the public from the Valley View facility. A working mom herself, Pignatiello knows the value of the labor saving side of what she does and is happy that it brings fresh from the oven goodness into busy households.

 

Everybody pitches in at this family owned and operated enterprise, even the kids. Her sons, ages 3 and 6 ½, are expert and eager taste testers, always ready to step up and nibble a new cookie creation. That is, if their mom doesn’t get there first.