Elsylee Colon spends hours making, baking and decorating gorgeous cookies for her company, Elsylee Galetes Artesanals (fine artisan cookies). She sees them as portable mandalas that can be appreciated for the work that goes into them as much as for their scrumptious flavor.

Elsylee, 31, was named for her grandmothers, Elsie and Leticia. She grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and left the island in 1995 for Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., where she earned a degree in psychology. She did event planning and catering in New York City, joining her high school sweetheart, Jonathan Llovet, in Miami two years ago.

Elsylee's edible art is organized into collections inspired by architectural movements with individual cookies named for cities that exemplify it. The Baroco collection, for example, is based on opulent baroque architecture and includes the Sevilla (buttery almond balls dusted in vanilla sugar), Valencia (French shortbread with hints of orange) and St. Marteen (nutty thumbprint confections with guava-raspberry conserve in the center).

The Art Nouveau collection includes the Normandy (sweet and salty chocolate shortbread with dark chocolate chips and fleur de sel) and New Delhi (delicately spiced with curry powder, almonds and toasted coconut).

The rococo spirit of the Beaux Arts is reflected in the Palmero (a buttery hazelnut sandy topped with dark chocolate glace), the Lombardy (almond amaretto macaroon) and Vienna (almond cherry shortbread thumbprint filled with blackberry conserve).

The Art Deco era inspired the brightly colored Miami sugar cookie, the Papeete pecan and coconut cloud meringue and the San Miguel Meyer lemon cookie.

Developed from family sources and Elsylee's imagination, the recipes are baked in a commercial kitchen in Pompano Beach with prep help from several assistants. The cookies are made on demand, not mass produced, and the company fills wholesale as well as individual orders.

Linda Bladholm's latest book is Latin and Caribbean Grocery Stores Demystified.