Emily Hall: How One Woman Turned a Breakup into a Cookie Sensation

By Chanda Temple

There’s something about biting into a chocolate chip cookie that just soothes the soul.

It’s ooey. It’s gooey. And just oh, so good.

And if you are Emily Hall, a chocolate chip cookie is not only comfort food but also a recipe for new beginnings.

The Breakup Cookie is made with three types of chocolate, which gives it its decadent flavor. (Photo courtesy of The Breakup Cookie company.)

In 2011, Emily found herself maneuvering the dating world after a divorce. But after a few dates with a new beau, she realized things were not going to work out. So, she invited the man over to her home – to break up with him.

They sat in her kitchen, and she presented him a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Then, she opened up with: “We need to talk.’’

As she told him their relationship was not for her, he tried to change her mind. Then, he nibbled on one of the cookies and said: “This is a good cookie.”

Emily thanked him for the compliment and gave him a package of cookies before sending him on his way. Their split was amicable.

At the time, Emily was a baker at a metro-Birmingham coffee shop. The next day, she shared the cookies with staff and told them about her split. And right there on the spot, a cool idea was born. “This should be our cookie, and we should call it The Breakup Cookie,’’ someone said.

They worked on the recipe, which Emily found in The New York Times. They also discussed how to scale it and tweak it before it was officially sold in the coffee shop.

It didn’t take long before the cookie, which is made with three different chocolates and topped with sea salt, took off at the coffee shop. Months later, Emily launched into a new career as a food styling assistant at a Birmingham-area media company.

Between 2011 and 2020, she moved from food styling assistant to work in recipe developing and testing. Eventually, she advanced to main food stylist at the media company. But she never forgot about The Breakup Cookie, which she made for friends and family in her spare time.

By day, Emily Hall is a main food stylist at a media company in the Birmingham area. She also runs The Breakup Cookie company, which provides her frozen cookie dough to area grocery stores for people to make at home. (Photo courtesy of The Breakup Cookie company.)

Then, in March 2020, the pandemic hit, and many Americans, including Emily, sheltered at home. When she wasn’t working from home for the media company, she was in the kitchen, whipping up fresh batches of Breakup cookies. Due to the demand, Emily decided to make and sell frozen cookie dough of The Breakup Cookie between September and December 2020. But by the end of December, orders from familiar faces and even strangers remained strong.

“And that’s when I started to wonder if there was something there,” said Emily, now married and the mother of two small children. She consulted with friends and her husband, chef and artist Roscoe Hall, whom she married in 2013, about taking The Breakup Cookie to the next level.

They first started selling through Nourish Foods in spring 2021. By fall 2021, the dough was available at six Birmingham-area Piggly Wiggly stores.

Today, The Breakup Cookie dough is sold in the frozen food section of 17 stores. Emily is in talks with small grocery store chains outside of Birmingham, and she’s looking to expand to other Southeastern states. People are always interested in the story behind the cookie, getting it for any occasion and not just to soothe a wounded heart.

The Breakup Cookie got its start in the metro-Birmingham area after Emily Hall made a batch to breakup with a beau. Today, you can find it in the frozen section of nearly 17 stores in Alabama. (Photo courtesy of The Breakup Cookie company.)

“That still is not lost on me. I still get in my feelings about getting to be a part of people’s everyday lives in that way,” she said.

When Emily started her frozen cookie dough company, someone told her to “just keep moving’’ whenever things got hard. She encourages others interested in launching an idea to keep that in mind, because “we can do hard things.”

“Yes, you are going to make mistakes, and they are going to come in all shapes and sizes,” she said. “But even if you spend all the time in the world trying to decide what the best decision is, you could still make a wrong decision. It could still inevitably end up being not the best decision at the time.”

“So just keep moving, just keep choosing and learn from those choices.’’

For more information on The Breakup Cookie or to buy online, visit http://www.thebreakupcookie.com.

Savor This!: Why did Emily Hall go with selling frozen cookie dough instead of baking them for others? She wanted consumers to have that fresh-from-the-oven experience any time they wanted to eat a Breakup Cookie. Its pink packaging even comes with sea salt for at-home cooks to enjoy the cookie the way Emily intended. Under the “Sweet Ideas” tab on her website, Emily offers tips on how to blend the cookie dough with Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Brownie mix to make Breakup Brookies; how to microwave a cookie in a coffee mug; and more. They can even be made in an air fryer. Yum-o!!

The Breakup Cookie can be enjoyed in good times and bad. It’s the story behind the cookie’s amazing start that intrigues people, and it’s the taste that keeps them coming back for seconds. (Photo courtesy of The Breakup Cookie company.)

Chanda Temple is an award-winning writer living in Birmingham, Ala. She blogs at  http://www.chandatemplewrites.com. Follow her on Instagram at @chandatemple. If you have a food story idea, email her at chandatemple@gmail.com.