“At 61, I gave up my career as a graphic designer to make cakes.”

Like 61-year-old Carol Dean from Britain who gave up her career as a graphic designer to make cookies. The change in career direction has given her a new lease on life and deepened her love of food, while gaining new skills and friends.

“I face challenges with confidence”

“With the cookies, I feel like I’m getting back to what fascinated me about design in the first place, which is really creative things being designed by hand,” Carol Dean, 61, who makes bespoke cookies, tells The Telegraph.

Dean moved to the UK from the US in 1995 and has worked in leading design agencies for the past 35 years. Her new career took a completely different path.

It all started when she took a trip to Japan with her family a few years ago, and that’s where her interest in sweets was born. She found a cute cookie set at a store in Tokyo, complete with cutters and letters, and once she got home, she set about baking them in the oven.

Dean grew up in a large family of 7 children, and remembers her mother in the 1950s baking all the time. “I enjoy perfecting my mom’s recipes, like classic shortbread, as well as making my own cookie flavors – orange flavor is one of my favorites.”

While it had humble beginnings, Dean now has clients such as the Globe Theater in London. “The advantage of life is that I approach challenges with confidence and self-belief. I know there is a solution.”

Like other mature entrepreneurs, she agrees that her new venture was invigorating and “restarted the engines again.”