Make Way for the Cookie Man, Larry Calvert of Toute Sweets

What do you get when you put a creative, talented man in front of an oven? AMAZINGLY beautiful cookies! Or at least, that's the case with Larry Calvert of Toute Sweets baked goods.  

Larry began decorating cookies over 5 years ago as a way to relieve stress and express his creativity. After a successful career in sales for more than 17 years, Larry decided to say goodbye to the corporate world and hello to the sweet life by launching Toute Sweets last summer. 

"Although, I was successful in my career, something was really missing. After a great deal of support and encouragement from friends and family, I decided to take my passion for decorating cookies full-time and make a pretty drastic career change. I now love what I do," gushed Calvert.

Calvert has lived in Georgetown for over 14 years; many of his first sales, and current customers, are his neighbors. Since he does not have a retail store, he relies heavily on word of mouth and Georgetowners have been his biggest fans so far.  

“My cookies have helped celebrate my neighbors' engagements, birthdays, weddings, housewarmings, baby showers and corporate events.”

In the beginning, Larry would bake and decorate at home, but when demand grew higher, he was forced to rent commercial kitchen space in D.C. He recently worked his magic, adorning champagne bottle-shaped cookies that would be given as favors at an upcoming wedding. He carefully iced the cookies, gently adding brushstrokes of edible gold dust to each bottle.

Every creation is unique. Every creation is delicately handled.   

Toute Sweets caters to a wide-ranging clientele. One of the things Larry loves is that his clients are very diverse and he never knows what request he will get next. He primarily works with event planners, but also gets a lot of orders from individual customers.

Being in such an international city has its advantages as well. Recently, Calvert had a request for the Washington Ballet Rock n Roll Gala at the Russian Embassy. He personally hand-decorated 300 guitar cookies that were given as favors at the end of the event. 

What is, perhaps, most refreshing about Larry is how much he loves what he does. He is truly passionate about his venture and he puts 100 percent into every single cookie he designs.

Luckily, his passion is starting to be recognized. Last October, Calvert was featured in The Washington Post Magazine’s Fall Dining Guide as one of “Tom Sietsema’s Eight Talents to Know." Additionally, his edible photo cookies won a contest, held by Microsoft, and were featured in the March issue of Martha Stewart Living.

Calvert says, “I have gotten so much positive feedback from my customers. It is such a wonderful feeling to know that what I do makes people happy and that my custom cookies help celebrate the big events in people’s lives.”