Oprah called these NC cookies a favorite for 2021. Here’s where you can find them.
Long before Tonya Council’s cookies landed on Oprah Winfrey’s Favorite Things list of 2021, they had already passed a tougher taste test: her grandmother’s.
As the granddaughter of Mildred “Mama Dip” Council, Tonya Council grew up in a rarefied world in Southern food. Mama Dip had founded her influential namesake restaurant in Chapel Hill, authored celebrated cookbooks and made numerous television appearances.
One day, Tonya Council was ready to toss a batch of test cookies, questioning whether the dream of turning her grandmother’s beloved pecan pie into a cookie could ever be a reality. Mama Dip stopped her and asked for a taste.
“She said, ‘I think you’ve got something here,’” Tonya Council said, and the cookies were added to the dessert case. “I was always her biggest fan, and when she said that, I knew she meant it. She didn’t let just anyone put something in her dessert case.”
On Nov. 1, Tonya Council’s Pecan Crisp Cookies were named to Winfrey’s coveted holiday gift lists, a list that can mean an automatic bump in sales for local and national products alike.
“It was overwhelming; I was shocked that Oprah had tasted my cookies,” Council said. “The list obviously carries a lot of weight, and Oprah is a highly successful Black woman.”
Council said she had carried the secret of landing on the O List for two weeks. Once it was public, she said the response was enormous.
“The internet has really gone crazy,” Council said.
A famous pie becomes a famous cookie
Tonya Council grew up in her grandmother’s restaurant, so a life of baking was no great surprise.
“Food is in my blood,” Tonya Council said.
The now-famous cookies were born out of a problem. While waiting tables in the restaurant about a decade ago, Tonya Council was tired of seeing an empty space in the Mama Dip’s dessert counter, beyond the daily cakes and pies.
The empty space nagged at her, she said, and as a Council, she solved the problem with food.
Council set out to recreate one of her grandmother’s most popular pies, the iconic pecan, but in cookie form.
“So many people would talk about her pecan pies and say ‘That’s my favorite dessert ever,’” Council said. “I wanted to take that and turn it into a cookie.”
How to get the cookies
Council was already anticipating a busy baking season, but now with a national spotlight on her cookies, she expects it to reach a new level.
“The pecan people are going to be very happy,” Council said.
The Oprah-approved pecan crisps come in a $24 tin or a large $43 jar.
There will be a Tonya’s Cookies pop-up Nov. 19 at the Crabtree Valley Mall, near Council’s store Sweet Tea & Cornbread. Council also runs a Sweet Tea & Cornbread restaurant at the North Carolina Museum of History.
This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Oprah called these NC cookies a favorite for 2021. Here’s where you can find them.."
