When I can’t sleep and I’ve exhausted every social feed and no TV show can hold my attention, I turn to Facebook reels. Those videos are to me what “Baby Shark” is for babies. My absolute favorites have always been cookie-decorating videos, where tantalizing icing swirls onto smooth sugar cookies with ease. I’ve always wondered if it’s as easy as it looks.
I soon found myself in an apron living my late-night dreams: a Christmas cookie-decorating class.
I arrived at Culinary by Hobby Hill in Powhatan just in time to see fluffy frosting tumbling in a shiny red mixer. Sharon Munyak, the school’s founder and jack-of-all-trades, was perched at a long table surrounded by various ingredients. Somehow, she’d already memorized the names of everyone in the class.
After Munyak left her decades-long career in systems installation, she dreamt of leisurely days riding her horses. She had seven—one for every day of the week. “That lasted for 30 days, and I asked myself, ‘What now?’” she recalls. The “what now” became a stall at a farmers market where she began selling zucchini bread under the name Hobby Hill.
Word of Munyak’s cooking prowess spread, and soon Goochland County reached out with a wild idea: Would she consider teaching cooking classes? Flattered, she said yes, and soon found herself teaching in the surrounding counties, with a mozzarella-making class quickly becoming her course flagship. After operating out of a rentable kitchen, she secured a permanent location in Powhatan in 2017.
Fast forward, and today, Munyak offers more than 45 cooking classes, including those on pasta, biscuits, baklava, breads, grains, global food, and much more. She’s even rebranded, known now as Culinary by Hobby Hill.
Let Class Begin
A sign in Munyak’s well-equipped kitchen reads, “Do what you love, love what you do.” It’s clear she lives by these words, teaching nearly all of the classes. “It’s hard to find someone that has the same passion as me,” she explains.
Plain, pre-baked cookies were laid out on two tables for my classmates and me. Their anamorphic shapes waited patiently to be decorated: Rudolphs, mittens, snowflakes, Christmas trees, stars, ornaments, gingerbread men, and candy canes.
I wish I could humbly confess that my Rudolph looked more like Krampus than the jolly ol’ critter, or that my snowflake resembled five-day-old slush. But my journalistic integrity dictates that I must tell you the truth: I totally nailed it.
OK, I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon. But for someone who had never decorated a cookie before, I can’t feign modesty. My trees sprouted boughs and ornaments, my mittens had swirls, and my snowmen sported top hats. Thanks to all those satisfying Facebook videos, and with Munyak’s watchful eye and helping hand, I decorated a platter of cookies worthy of Santa’s discerning palette.
In-class demos were the best part of Munyak’s syllabus, with her lessons on using edible glitter a class fave. And learning about wet versus dry decorating was also a hit: wait long enough for the icing to dry and you get a cool 3D effect; using a toothpick and a different frosting color while the one on the cookie was still wet resembles tie-dye.
The camaraderie among participants, our kind teacher, the learning curve, and all the excitement that goes along with grasping something new were all part of the experience. Not only was it a merry time, but it also made me want to take more cooking classes. Deciding which one will be the hard part. HobbyHillFarm.com
Sharon Munyak of Powhatan’s Culinary by Hobby Hill shows Virginia Living’s Gabriela de Camargo Gonçalves the Christmas cookie-decorating ropes.
This article originally appeared in our December 2024 issue.
