Ingredients Interview It's A Woman's World Cookies Bakery Baker Interview Rebel Daughter Cookies Norwalk It's A Woman's World: Anne Grossman of Rebel Daughter Cookies Andrew Dominick March 10, 2026 Photo credit: Natasha Fleming Photography Anne Grossman does it all. She’s a mother, a wife, someone I’m proud to call a close friend, and a small business owner with her bakery, Rebel Daughter Cookies in Norwalk. I normally don’t feel much pressure when writing about anything…Except when it’s writing an intro for someone you know! In all seriousness, it was love at first…BITE! I remember telling Anne when she was filming customer testimonials that if I didn’t like her cookies, I don’t know if we’d be friends! But what kept me coming back and kept our dialogue going through Instagram DMs was one cookie in particular…her Fluffernutter Forever. And it’s my ideal cookie. Chocolatey, peanut buttery, marshmallowy, salty, sweet, crispy caramelized sugar edges, and a soft, gooey center that’s only made THAT much better if you zap it for a few seconds in the microwave for that fresh baked feel. The truth is, the cookie hooked me, but so did she, as a human who is equal parts intelligent and goofy, refreshingly open and honest, extremely creative (I mean, just watch her Instagram reels!), someone I could really sit and talk with about anything and everything, and her personal and business values are in sync. Both Anne and Rebel Daughter Cookies have a strong moral message for inclusivity, women’s empowerment, and just flat-out love. Even if I might know some of her answers to my questions, I’m curious to get to know her more than I already do, so let’s dive in to her origin story, her message, COOKIES (obviously), and what’s in the near future for Rebel Daughter Cookies. O(M)G - hand-cut European semisweet and milk chocolates, Rebel Daughter Cookies’ own slow-aged Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract and a sprinkle of chocolate saltPhoto credit: Rachel Steiner Tell us the tales of your earliest memories of baking. How did you get bit by the baking bug? And what were some of your favorite guilty pleasures as a kid?My mom and grandmother were both excellent cooks, although I remember baking mainly with my mother: Christmas cookies, banana bread, angel food cake, pineapple upside-down cake, and pies depending which fruits were in season, and cakes for birthdays that I insisted on icing so carefully and artistically myself. One of my favorite gifts was a children's cookbook. Gosh, I made everything inside that book over and over again. My mom was a recipe-follower but always taught me you had to "doctor" a recipe, meaning trust your taste and instincts and adjust the ingredients as needed to give a recipe the je ne sais quoi it was missing. I recently inherited a lot of family recipes and many have alternatives or adjustments scrolled along the sides. Mind you these are EARLY memories, before my mom got on a health food kick and began cutting back on the sweets she would make. I can attribute this moment in time for my internal rebellion that formed the foundation of Rebel Daughter Cookies: indulge without guilt. Because of my mom's health food kick, I started craving and sneaking snacks at my friends' or my grandmother's houses. Forbidden treats like Fluffernutter sandwiches, brownies, s'mores, candy, became core memories and the basis for all of my "Crowd Favorite" flavors. When I met my husband, Scott, he is an amazing cook but has never followed a recipe in his life. He inspired me to start creating my own recipes, while still holding onto the knowledge from those foundational years following working out of cookbooks as a kid. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rebel Daughter Cookies®️ (@rebeldaughtercookies) You’re still a relatively new business and as a teenager into adulthood, you weren’t working in kitchens or in bakeries. Take us on your journey to discovering that you wanted to do this as a career. I'd always had an entrepreneurial itch, but never knew what I was intensely passionate about that would make me want to drop everything and put seven years of blood, sweat, and tears into. But when I was a stay-at-home mom to my two young kids (at the time three years and six years old), it hit me that I was missing that spark that made me feel like me; that creative outlet outside of motherhood that was just for myself. One thing I missed moving from Brooklyn to the 'burbs were these amazing chocolate chip walnut cookies that I used to get after every weekend workout around the corner from my apartment. I tried everything around here and even mail-ordered cookies from old haunts but was always disappointed. I found that some of my favorite places had started using cheaper ingredients or co-packing what used to be handcrafted recipes. I decided that I would start baking again as my creative outlet and make it my mission to create the most amazing, gourmet chocolate chunk cookies that eluded me. I baked half batches of cookies every other day and force-fed them to my husband for at least a month before he finally said, "This is it. This is the recipe." What he didn't know was that his encouragement would send me down this rabbit hole of turning this one single recipe into a cookie revolution. He was thinking bake sale. I was thinking national brand. I'd finally figured out what I wanted to do with my life and I wasn't going to let anyone stop me. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rebel Daughter Cookies®️ (@rebeldaughtercookies) Now that we’re here…how did Rebel Daughter Cookies come to be?Well, my mom had always called me her Rebel Daughter, and it felt like an appropriate name for a business born despite the naysayers, despite being a full-time mom to two little kids and not having an institutional culinary or business background. I remember my husband and I had a "fight" one night about me being obviously crazy to want to go and make this a real thing. The next morning, I woke up super early before the kids were awake and he found me feverishly working on what would become my beloved Bananas Foster cookie recipe. He said something like, "Wow, you're really going to do this, aren't you?" And that felt like the pivotal moment he realized I wasn't turning back. I almost named my business "Obstinate Banana" because of that moment, but then I realized my mom always called me her "Rebel Daughter." And that name made a whole lot more sense. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rebel Daughter Cookies®️ (@rebeldaughtercookies) I’m not saying this out of any bias, as I was a fan before I was your friend, but I know you use the best possible ingredients in all your cookies. If someone has never taken a bite of a Rebel Daughter Cookie, what can they expect ingredients wise and in general? Yes! I am passionate about not compromising on ingredients or process because of the disappointments I'd had mail ordering cookies and discovering these bakeries had clearly started cutting corners. I believe wholeheartedly that the ingredients MAKE the cookie. If you're not using the best ingredients, it's not going to be the best cookie. We hand chop our chocolate chunks from huge bars of gourmet European chocolate; we import our vanilla beans directly from an organic vanilla farm in Madagascar and slow age our own vanilla extract to use in our cookies; the stuff you buy off the shelves is barely aged at all, and you can taste it. We use small batch, smoked chocolate sea salt on our cookies and hand roll each and every cookie. We make our own fillings and jams...The list goes on. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rebel Daughter Cookies®️ (@rebeldaughtercookies) Rebel Daughter Cookies has not only lots of women’s empowerment in its values, but it’s also just all inclusive. Tell those who aren’t familiar with you and your brand what you stand for. When I started this company, I was very deliberate that it would have to be about "more than cookies." There are an infinite number of cookie companies out there, but the brand is me and was born out of my story of finding my voice later in life. And because I was bullied a lot as a kid, our brand is about embracing your weirdness that makes you unique and special, and championing the underdog. For the past three years, I hosted a free pop-up event for other women-owned businesses outside of our bakery to allow them to showcase their products and not charge them a cent. I'm not able to do that anymore due to the construction on and around Isaacs Street, unfortunately. But in that spirit, I just started a YouTube channel @RebelDaughterCookies which will go behind the scenes with other small, local women-owned businesses that I love and I feel may not have the recognition they deserve. I want to help to shine a light on these other women's stories. I hope you follow along! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rebel Daughter Cookies®️ (@rebeldaughtercookies) I have my favorite cookie (Fluffernutter Forever FOR LIFE!), but what’s your favorite and why? It’s fine to talk about a few because I know lately you have fluctuated on this with some of your limited cookies! My favorite "Crowd Favorite" flavor is The Original. As its namesake implies, this OG chocolate chunk walnut cookie was my very first recipe and the catalyst for all its sister cookies. HOWEVER, and I can't believe I'm admitting this, but our most recent special, Miss C.R.I.S.P.T., which is a semisweet toffee cookie, may have dethroned The Original as my favorite Rebel Daughter cookie! I cannot get enough of it so it's good it's only on the menu for a limited time. (Don't tell The Original). What’s on the horizon for you and for Rebel Daughter Cookies? We are focused on finding a new location for our bakery; all of the construction around the bakery has closed roads and made it even more difficult for people to find us. And our bakery itself is set to be demolished to make way for a hotel or condos at some point, so there's that. (If anyone out there reading this has a location for me in mind, let me know!) But we are also researching how to bring our slow-aged Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract to market in a much bigger way, so stay tuned... And of course, subscribe to our YouTube channel or follow us on Instagram @rebeldaughtercookies to hear the latest while also hopefully discovering other awesome, small, women-owned businesses that I love and think you should know about! rebeldaughtercookies.comPublication note: Just before the release of this interview, Anne revealed to her audience that she will be closing her Norwalk shop in the middle of May so she can dedicate time to find a new home for Rebel Daughter Cookies. Here’s her announcement. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rebel Daughter Cookies®️ (@rebeldaughtercookies)
