How does someone with undergraduate and masters degrees from Stanford’s Biology School of Humanities and Sciences become a cookie entrepreneur?
I asked Margaret Peus that very question after I saw her frozen cookie dough in Central Market and the next day serendipitously received an email from her publicist. We met the following day.
Made by Marge’s “from-scratch” ready-to-bake cookies are new to Central Market but have been a fixture at the St. Michael’s Farmers Market since 2024. Her presence there and savvy marketing created demand for her take-and-bake cookies that led to the Central Market placement.
Margaret Murray Peus is a Ft. Worth native who graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and a Master of Science in Epidemiology and Clinical Research: Infectious Diseases. She graduated in 2020 and lived in the Bay Area of California, working remotely as a biotech consultant. Between Zoom calls, Marge would tap into her creative side to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch.
What started as a side hustle got a bit more serious when her mother gifted her a commercial sized mixer. Marge is first and foremost a scientist, so she approached recipe development as any scientist would embark on a lab experiment — mix, test, taste, tweak — in endless cycles. When her mother, who’s her greatest cheerleader, and her husband, her biggest cookie critic, mutually agreed that the recipe was perfect, she started selling cookies.
In addition to selling her cookies at the farmer’s market, Marge has been selling them on her website which includes refrigerated food-safe shipping and handwritten notes.
Local real estate agent Shirley Cohn learned about the cookies at the farmer’s market then started sending them to friends. “I send the cookies to friends who spend their summers out of Dallas to let them know I’m thinking about them and to stay in touch.” Shirley frequently entertains and added, “I would make homemade cookies from my grandmother’s recipe, and my husband Bill says Marge’s cookies are just as good as my Savannah, Georgia, grandmother’s.”
That’s high praise, Marge. Shirley has cooked for me many times and she is a wonderful cook.
Made by Marge cookies come in Original Recipe chocolate chip, Pasture Perfect chocolate chip made with organic butter, flour, and grass-fed butter, Gluten Free chocolate chip, Rainbow Chip, and Marge’s personal favorite flavor, S’Mores. She likes that one best because it was the most complicated recipe. Spoken like a true scientist.
You can find Made by Marge’s Original chocolate chip and S’Mores frozen cookie dough in local Central Market stores where it retails for $25.99 for a dozen cookies or all flavors online at madebymarge.com.
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