Batavia resident Priscilla Sarmiento-Gupana, who is currently practicing pediatric medicine in Aurora, has found a way to relieve stress and unleash her artistic side by producing fabulously decorated cookies that have gotten her some national attention.
Not only has she wowed neighbors and friends with her creations, thanks to social media postings she found her way to the Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” TV show back in 2021 and will be back on the show again at 8 p.m. Thursday in an episode featuring her and four other contestants.
Sarmiento-Gupana, 41, said she began developing a passion for baking as a child.
“As a youngster, I started making things from boxes as most people start with. My first thing made from scratch was chocolate chip cookies. I later progressed to sugar cookies and other things as an adult,” she said.
“I’ve always enjoyed art,” she said. “I have a lot of artists in my family. I’d say it’s in my blood. I realized that I was pretty good at making things looks beautiful – not just delicious – and I continued to build my skill sets over time. When I started doing this, there weren’t a lot of YouTube tutorials or things like that, so I started doing this through a lot of trial and error. There were lots of errors but it got me to where I am now.”
Sarmiento-Gupana said a personal tragedy led her to bake more often as a form of therapy.
“About 12 years ago when I was a brand-new doctor, unfortunately I lost my newborn son right at delivery and I used baking as a therapy during that time,” she said. “While I began to bake for therapy I began to also bake things for other people because it makes you happy to make other people happy. Who doesn’t love a baked good or a cookie? It makes everybody happy. I began to use my talents to brighten other people’s days and it made me feel better also.”
She said the more she baked the better her creations became.
“After some time, I was making beautiful, elaborately decorated sweets and I started posting my work on social media, mostly my Instagram page, and that is how the Food Network got wind of my work,” she said.
She said she began to see her social media postings gaining a lot of traction.
“I started getting a lot of followers on my page and I realized I have quite a big platform to use for messages for good,” she said. “I think social media can be a scary place, but also have a positive role and I decided to use my platform for good.”
She said being a pediatrician at VNA Health Care, she is “very interested in caring for people and being compassionate for those who are in need and I also am very interested in people staying healthy and I started using my bakes as a way of sharing positivity and health and things like that during the pandemic.”
A casting director for the Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” reached out to Sarmiento-Gupana through social media in 2019 when they started looking at her work. She finally got a spot on the show in 2021.
She said she came pretty close to winning in 2021, “but unfortunately lost in the finale, so I was really hungry and eager to come back.”
“I was very proud to get a call this spring asking if I would be willing to come back for a ‘redemption episode.’ I went and I filmed it and you’ll see the results on Thursday,” she said.
The local pediatrician’s baking also attracted the attention of two stars from the “Ted Lasso” show, she said.
“I had been posting some ‘Ted Lasso’ cookies and one of the editors saw them and contacted me and asked if I would be willing to send some cookies to the editors’ wrap party,” she said. “I had no idea the two stars (Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt) were there and were fawning over my work which was so exciting because I am such a big fan.”
Sarmiento-Gupana said she has continued to bake for special events and her own kids’ birthdays and every Thursday brings baked goods to the clinic where she works for her co-workers to enjoy.
Neighbors like Donna Cooper of Batavia have reaped the benefits of knowing Sarmiento-Gupana, Cooper said.
“I’ve known her since November of 2017,” Cooper said. “I only remember that because the way I met her. She delivered the most amazing box of cookies to my house” after the Batavia High School football team quarterbacked by her son Riley had won the Class 7A state championship game.
“She dropped them off at my front door,” she said of the cookies. “I had no idea where they came from. They were insane.”
Regarding Sarmiento-Gupana’s talents, Cooper said her baked goods are “like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“I can send you photographs and you’d be mesmerized by these cookies. They are almost too beautiful to eat,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She said she is thrilled her neighbor is back on the “Christmas Cookie Challenge.”
”We watched her the last time,” Cooper said. “She was on before and this is her revenge to come back to win.”
The designs of Sarmiento-Gupana’s cookies run the gamut from fun and whimsical to pure joy and celebration of her Filipino heritage.
“But also, I guess some of my work centers around social justice and being an active anti-racist. There are many ways to display your support for those in need or who are marginalized and this is just my artistic way to show support for those I believe need their voices to be heard,” she said.
“There is a lot of power in art and work done with hands,” she said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
Nov 07, 2023 at 2:09 pm