Humans show love in all sorts of ways. For Sudbury’s Cindy Harbottle, baking is definitely one of the ways she shows her love.
Whether butter tarts, banana bread or birthday cakes, Harbottle learned the secrets of baking from her mother.
“Growing up in Little Current, my mom was a career cook and would make bread for the neighbours,” Harbottle said. “She also specialized in rolls, butter tarts and cakes and it was how we really connected to each other.”
Harbottle studied alongside her mom, hand over hand. She embraced the sweets but never really the breadmaking.
She eventually would inherit all the recipes in her mom’s repertoire, including her world-class mayonnaise chocolate cake and banana cake with brown sugar icing.
As an administrative assistant at Lasalle Secondary School, Harbottle would spread love through tasty food — to rave reviews and requests to make cakes and butter tarts for special occasions.
“While I love to bake and it was always a great way to de-stress with young children and now older ones, I never wanted to do it for payment or as a career move,” Harbottle said. “I didn’t want that added pressure with something I genuinely love to do.”
Harbottle did connect with the Go-Give Project a few years back when they were looking for people to cook nightly outreach meals for vulnerable people living on city streets.
“With my husband's help, we prepared food (which often included homemade sweet treats) for a couple of years until arthritis in my hands made it too difficult,” she said. “It gave me another way to provide food, not only as sustenance, but as comfort and kindness.”
These days, baking is for Saturday mornings only. She makes a weekly banana bread for lunches and sometimes a tray of her delectable butter tarts.
Other families' other requests come often, too. Her husband also loves lemon pies and carrot cakes. Her daughter has a fondness for shortbread cookies and her son loves her chocolate poke cake with Skor bits and drizzled caramel sauce.
Even after decades spent in the kitchen, Harbotte humbly admits her mom was a much better baker than she will ever be.
“The benefit I have today is that I can take those age-old recipes and tweak them with content from the Internet,”she says. “I also have more ingredients available to me today.”
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury. Let’s Eat! is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.