Sweet Center for Young Alum’s Baking Success
Social Media Following Boosts Stuffed-Cookie Business to National Stage
Nutella centers and a blizzard of sprinkles and other colorful ingredients make recent alum Drew Haas '24's cookies both eye-catching and tongue-tempting. Her business, Cookies by Drew, has over 160,000 followers on social media.
Photo courtesy of Cookies by Drew
Drew Haas ’24 bakes enough colorful cookies each week to feed a few hundred people, but her signature Nutella-stuffed treats virtually tempt her more than 160,000 online followers.
This Terp switched studies for sprinkles this spring to pursue Cookies by Drew full time after graduating with a degree in communications and entrepreneurship. Her business blossomed during her time at UMD, and she now collaborates with some of Gen Z’s biggest stars on social media, sharing her love of baking one bite at a time.
Introduced to the art of baking by her grandmother, Wendee Reznick, Haas grew up sneaking spoonfuls of cookie dough and peeking over bakery counters. During her junior year at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., she took a friend’s recommendation to start selling the treats she’d begun making.
She figured it would remain a part-time hobby, rather than a future career that would bring national attention: “I didn’t even really understand what I was getting myself into.”
Cookies by Drew was born, and Haas began posting on social media to promote her brand in late 2019. Five years later, she has over 124,000 TikTok followers and 40,000 Instagram followers, and she’s surpassed 4 million views on TikTok.
Drew Haas '24 shows off her wares at a bake sale.
Haas’ business began by delivering cookies to friends and family on plastic-wrapped paper plates, but when the 2019 holiday season rolled around, sales ramped up. Then, the pandemic hit—and it turned out that funfetti, stuffed oreo chocolate chip and monster cookies were a bright spot during lockdown for her growing customer base.
Haas practically quarantined in her kitchen, pulling all-nighters and baking through the day with her mom, Keri Haas, to help Cookies by Drew fill the gap, with Bethesda bakeries shut down or limited in their operations. Customers dropped by her house for socially distanced pick-ups of cookie boxes for birthdays, weddings, holidays or just to fill a sweet craving.
Her mom was impressed with the seriousness with which her daughter pursued the growing business.
“I think Drew had drive for doing this from the beginning. She was going to make it,” Keri said. “It’s her passion. She just loves to bring joy to people’s lives with her cookies.”
On the first anniversary of Cookies by Drew in June 2020, Haas held a celebratory giveaway of 100 free cookies. Cars lined up for two blocks.
“It was the most insane, surreal thing I’ve ever witnessed,” Haas said.
As a freshman at UMD, she began baking out of a commercial kitchen in Rockville, Md. Keri Haas also stepped in to help with management and newly added shipping nationwide.
On a typical school day, Haas split her time between the kitchen and the classroom. She commuted a half-hour from College Park to Rockville to bake, and arrived back in time for afternoon classes.
“It was an outlet for me to be able to escape from the college atmosphere and go to my kitchen and zone out and bake,” Haas said. “It felt almost like therapy.”
In 2022, Haas started working with Foxtrot, a local grocery store chain that played a huge role in Haas’ success. Ten locations in the DMV area purchased thousands of cookies each week for resale and put Cookies by Drew on the map and in the mouths of hundreds of shoppers. The chain went out of business earlier this year, but Haas is now selling her cookies at Soulful Cake, Mac Market Deli, Sprinkles Potomac and Bradley Food and Beverage.
One treat has been Cookies by Drew’s burgeoning online fame. On TikTok, Haas posts recipes, flavor sneak peeks, day-in-the-life reels and videos showing collaborations with other creators and small businesses. But her most popular content is mouth watering cookie-breaking videos where she gives viewers an up-close look at what’s inside her treats. Her most viral post has over 10 million views.
That’s caught the attention of sweet tooths from coast to coast, and nationwide shipping is a big part of her sales. Haas’ comment section floods with messages from hungry viewers. “Can I have those for every meal,” one follower wrote.
Even David Dobrik, a multiplatform influencer with over 17 million subscribers on YouTube, posted his reaction to the cookies on Snapchat saying “this is love” and “I'm a big, big fan.” Other star-studded collaborators include the Kid Laroi and the D’Amelio family.
Millions more see Haas’ treats through social media reviews and collaborations with food influencers like FoodGod, The VIP List and several others.
“She just has a way of posting that makes people feel like they want to watch,” Keri Haas said.
Haas and her small staff now work out of her Rockville kitchen and bake about 500 cookies per week to sell in boxes, which come with either six, eight or 12 of her signature flavors. She hopes to someday open a Cookies by Drew storefront in Washington, D.C., or even New York City.
“People love it, and there's a reason why it's constantly growing and evolving,” Haas said. “And I'm so constantly grateful for that.”
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