Known for her unique food combinations and upbeat personality, Courtney Cook, local teacher and mother of four, has gained three million followers after starting her TikTok  account in April 2025. 

Since then, she has been living a double life. Between getting invited to appear on the Jennifer Hudson Show and lesson planning and grading papers, Cook shows up for her students, her followers and family.

Most famously known for her sweet potato recipe, Cook’s version consists of taking a roasted sweet potato and putting a stick of Butterkäse cheese in the middle. Butterkäse cheese originated in Germany, and Cook describes it as “if Velveeta and American cheese had a baby,” according to Food & Wine. Back in January, Cook appeared on The Jennifer Hudson Show and she and Hudson put it together and tried it. 

Cook originally came up with this viral recipe due to her tight teaching schedule.

“[My sweet potato recipe] was born from me needing something really filling and really quick. As a teacher, you get like 25 minutes [for lunch], and that’s if you don’t need to go to the bathroom. So I needed something that I could eat with one hand and respond to emails with the other hand,” Cook said.

Life Before Content Creation

Cook’s love for food started off very young, and she often enjoyed watching shows that had anything to do with food.

“I’ve always been that way. Even as a kid, I remember watching ‘Matilda’ and loving the pancake scene, and the Cheerios scene. [I also enjoyed] ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ and watching [her] make lobster dressed up as Julia Child. I’ve just always loved food and it’s always been a comfort for me,” Cook said.

From 2015 to 2019, Cook lived in Okinawa, Japan while her husband was deployed. At this time, Cook was a new mother and had to take care of two small children. Cook enjoyed everything about Japan, spanning from the food to the culture.

“I was so inspired by the food. [I would] have stayed there, not just for the food, but for the culture. Everything is just so beautiful. We got to live there for four years and it was such a special time in my life,” Cook said.

Favorites and Fails

From being invited on brand trips to being a mother and teacher, Cook’s lifestyle is busy, which leaves little time to make a fancy meal every night. Luckily, her favorite combination doesn’t require much effort.

“My favorite combination is the soup dumplings with the onion cups. It’s hot and cold and crunchy and soft. I get the microwavable one, so this is an easy mom dinner or teacher lunch,” Cook said.

Though Cook is the complete opposite of picky, there are still some meals that just don’t land right for her.

“I recently tried sardines. I’m not a sardine girl, but I wanted to like sardines. Someone in my DMs said to get a saltine, put a tiny smear of peanut butter on and then the sardine on top of the cracker and peanut butter and just eat it like that. I couldn’t even get past the smell of it. Sardines are not for me. I can do mussels, but not sardines,” Cook said.

Getting Started

When Cook first started social media, she didn’t have any goals for her account.

“I just [made the account] for fun. I’m a really nosy person, [and] we have a faculty fridge and I want to open all [of] the lunch boxes and just be nosy and see what people have. For the record, I’ve never done it, but I’m so interested in seeing what people are having for lunch,” Cook said.

Since Cook is a mother, a content creator and a teacher all at once, it seems impossible that she balances a busy lifestyle while staying upbeat and motivated. While her content makes it seem like it would take a lot of time, such as her Sunday British roasts series, Cook doesn’t spend much time on filming and editing her videos.

“I just kind of make it happen. I’m a mother of four, and when I go home, it’s busy busy. I don’t put a lot of time into it,” Cook said. “I’ve been really thankful to have received all of this popularity even though I haven’t put a lot of time into it because I know that there are people out there who really trudge through and work really hard,” Cook said.

Life in the Classroom

In the classroom, Cook has found herself being able to connect with her students through a shared love of food and social media. 

“I had one student who I was struggling [to build a relationship] with. I wanted to know more about her. She was really not excited about my English class, which is perfectly fine, and I just wanted to build some kind of rapport with her. And then out of the blue, she said ‘My mom and I made your sweet potato’ and that was really neat to have that connection,” Cook said.

From the perspective of a student, Cook does fun activities in class.

“My favorite [assignment was] around Halloween; she had everyone write original spooky stories and arranged all the tables in a circle in the middle of the classroom. She let everyone sit next to their friends, and everyone brought candy to share together,” one of her current students, a freshman, said.

But in Cook’s classroom, not all activities are as simple.

“As a teacher, she will work with you, but you have to put in the work. You have to do the work to succeed in the class,” one of her current students, a senior, said.

Plans for the Future

On Wednesday, Apr. 15, Cook announced on her social media that she plans to take a step back from teaching for the 2026-27 school year after ten years in the classroom. 

“I don’t have a whole lot of plans. I’m not thinking of changing my content, but as I transition out of the classroom, I would like to do more day in the life [videos] where I film snippets of my day and put it all together because I really enjoy watching those,” Cook said.

One of her goals in the upcoming year is to publish a cookbook that also writes the story of how she got to be a content creator.

“It’s kind of like memoir meets cookbook. Right now, it’s going to be focused on different aspects of my life, so the first one being me, a college student at Kennesaw State University with a kitchen of my own for the first time and what I cooked then,” Cook said. “And then me being a newlywed in Stafford, Virginia all by myself because my husband was deployed and me being a new mom living in Japan and what I made.”

Though Cook doesn’t have many plans for future content, she does have plans for events that she is going to attend.

“This summer, I’m going to do some free cooking classes with Atlanta Angels. It’s a foster care organization, and I’m going to do cooking classes with kids who are about to age out of foster care. That’s my main thing I’m looking forward to that has come out of all of this. More than a New York trip or a California trip,” Cook said.

Advice and Assets

For content creators who are struggling to get recognized, Cook encourages them to not give up.

“I would really encourage anybody starting out to continue to put yourself out there because I think it’s really easy to get scared away in the beginning, or you post 15 new videos and it took you a really long time to make them and edit them and you’re sitting at 300 views on all of them. Don’t give up and continue to put yourself out there,” Cook said.

Her rise to fame has given Cook many meaningful opportunities, such as being able to use her platform to help people who are dependent on charity and kids in foster homes. 

“I just never thought that I’d be able to give my kids something, other than my one carat diamond ring. So [this] is so special and I’m thankful for it every day, and I don’t know why it’s been given to me, but it has been, and I’m going to do a lot of good with it,” Cook said.