“Cookie Cravers” is the affectionate nickname Allison Smith has given her customers: just one bite and they’re hooked.

She started her company Confections in 2002. Her traditional Bermuda sugar cookies have the benefit of 20 years of testing and tasting. She’s at the Ag Show this weekend, helping a cause that’s close to her heart — The Eliza DoLittle Society.

Q: How did you get into baking?

A: I have been baking in some way, shape or form since I was about 16 years old — unless you include that unfortunate incident when I almost burnt down the kitchen making mac and cheese when I was nine.

I have always been enamoured with baking and the feelings it evokes. When I was in primary school, my mother used to bake special treats for the family to enjoy on the weekends and for my brother and I to have in our lunch boxes. I think something just stuck; more so the feeling, how it felt to receive something handmade. There is a special quality about that and that is a very important foundation for Confections, making our Cookie Cravers feel very special.

Why sugar cookies?

I love all things “kitchen” and would have loved to have made a career as a caterer, but landed on baking and the traditional Bermuda sugar cookie in particular. There is something very nostalgic and wonderful about a traditional Bermuda sugar cookie. I see it in the faces of my Cookie Cravers every time they approach the tent. It’s a sense of wonderment and delight. You can see that it takes them back in time to ‘nana’s kitchen’ and their childhood. I love that twinkle in their eye, the excitement, the anticipation. Confections is a twinkle-based business. It truly is. We are not so much selling cookies as selling the experience. It has been interesting to note that visitors and locals alike have the same context when it comes to sugar cookies, and the same reaction. It’s universal. So universal, in fact, that just about every country the world over has a word for cookie: galleta in Spanish, kaakje in Dutch, bisuketto in Japanese, pechenye in Russian. It is a tie that binds one to one’s culture, heritage and childhood memories.

How long have you had the business and why’d you start it?

Confections has been in existence in many forms prior to formally becoming Confections in 2002. It has always been something that wiggled its way back into my life and heart no matter what else was going on. In 2002, I had returned to Bermuda from university. I was working full-time and doing Confections on the side. Confections started out as a special-occasion business: cookies in pretty parcels for gift-giving at Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day. By operating it in that way, it was something I could easily manage. Confections provided a creative escape.

Why did you choose to partner with TEDS for the Ag show?

About two years ago I was working with a local company who had a community outreach programme where employees were encouraged to participate. That year, TEDS solicited help to prepare meals at St John’s Church for a dinner they were hosting later that day. I volunteered to be part of the team. It was fantastic to give back while doing something that I enjoy, and to learn more about the charity.

It is an uncomfortable truth that many in this paradise of ours go hungry. This is even more true following the upheaval in our economy. TEDS believes in a Bermuda where no person should have to go hungry and their principal goal is to offer individuals and families who are in need of a hand up, not just a hand out. The charity provides more than 2,000 meals each week and is supported by hundreds of dedicated volunteers and financial donors. I am thrilled and honoured to partner with them at the Ag Show and hope to do my part to bring awareness to this issue and to help raise money so that they can continue this very important work. TEDS will have a crafting station at the Ag Show where the public will be invited to decorate grocery bags to make them fun and cheerful. The bags will then be filled with groceries and gifted to seniors. Please look for the Tiffany blue tent at the Ag Show and support TEDS.

•Part proceeds of Confections’ Ag Show sales will be donated to TEDS. The charity’s cookbook will also be available for sale. Learn more on Facebook: The Eliza DoLittle Society.