In the business of joy Bakery celebrates third anniversary By: Eva Wasney Posted: 4:17 PM CST Tuesday, Mar. 5, 2024

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This article was published 05/03/2024 (952 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The brick strip mall at the corner of Corydon Avenue and Wentworth Street is a hub of health and wellness. There are businesses offering physiotherapy, massage, counselling, acupuncture and, smack in the middle, a bakery selling sweet, comforting treats.

For Sugar + Salt Bakeshoppe owner Kayla Milligan, the setting couldn’t be more fitting.

“I’m in the business of joy. If someone’s having a bad day and they come in to grab a cookie or a little slice of something and it makes them feel a little better, that’s what we’re trying to do,” she says.

Baking has always been a source of comfort for Milligan.

She grew up making cookies and muffins with relatives and the practice became a stress reliever during university. The rise of cake-decorating shows on television inspired her to start playing around with fondant and frosted flowers. She was hooked immediately.

A nutritional science graduate, Milligan had no intention of opening a bakery business until her hairdresser offered to buy a cake.

“That’s when I thought, ‘OK, maybe I could start selling my work.’ Baking felt enjoyable and I also felt like I was good at it,” she says.

But the self-taught baker wanted some professional training before selling her wares to the public. She found a cake-decorating course in Toronto and moved east for a month-long crash course in icing, piping and small business 101.

Milligan, 36, launched Laugh Love Cakes in 2012 and ran the operation as a one-woman ghost bakery for three years. She gained a following in the local wedding industry and spent her summers pumping out dozens of intricate tiered cakes for clients.

Business was booming, but her mental health was suffering.

“I burned myself out really bad and I sold the farm. I lost all my passion and all my heart for it because I was just so exhausted,” she says.

After closing shop, she moved to London to pursue another creative interest: fashion. Still, baking wasn’t far from her mind.

“It was a very business-focused fashion program,” Milligan says. “Everything I was learning, my brain was automatically relating to a cake business.”

When she returned home, she decided to give it another go, this time with a brick-and-mortar bakery. She opened Sugar + Salt in February 2020 and managed to weather the “wild ride” of the pandemic with a few extra sets of hands.

Milligan’s parents helped her renovate the bright space — painted with pops of green and pink — and her mom Deb has become an unintentional front-counter fixture.

“My mom was supposed to stay for six months and help me get my feet wet,” Milligan says with a laugh. “Whenever she’s away, people are like, ‘Well, where’s your mom?’

“She’s helped make the community I was hoping to have when we started.”

The Sugar + Salt community consists of former Laugh Love clients, walk-ins from the surrounding businesses and new faces seeking one-off cakes for special occasions.

She makes three to four wedding cakes every weekend during the high season and has found a fun niche with kid’s birthday cakes.

“A four-year-old is always gonna be pumped about Batman. You can just see the joy on their face when they walk in and you know the 13 hours or whatever you put into that cake was worth it,” Milligan says.

Catering to a younger crowd, however, has required some research.

“I don’t have kids, but I can tell you every kids show that is popular right now,” she says, adding that she’s sculpted enough Paw Patrol characters out of fondant to last a lifetime.

Sugar + Salt celebrated its third-anniversary last month. It’s a hard-fought milestone Milligan is grateful to be celebrating with a wider circle of support and a growing clientele.

“We have an endless amount of families where I did the parents’ weddings and showers and now the kids’ cakes,” she says. “That’s one of my favourite things; I’ve gotten to grow up with so many of these families.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney

 

Tasty Tidbits

Raise a glass for women’s health

Celebrate International Women’s Day with snacks and sips from some of Winnipeg’s best female and non-binary chefs. Fête De Fem takes place Friday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The event — previously called Women, Wine and Food — is an annual fundraiser for the Women’s Health Clinic.

The evening will include a dance party, curated drink pairings and creative appetizers from Christa Guenther of Feast Bistro, Chantal Hogue of Frescolio, Pamela Kirkpatrick of Spruce Catering and other local chefs.

Tickets are $175 at Eventbrite for the full affair or $50 for the after-party.

More Women’s Day festivities

Local winery and brewery Low Life Barrel House (398 Daly St. N) is holding an International Women’s Day event of its own.

Actvities take Friday place from 4 p.m. until late, with a 5K run starting at 5:30 p.m., DJ Konjo spinning tunes from 7 p.m. onwards, as well as food by Renee Girard’s Made By Paste, feature cocktails and plenty of other sippables.

Entry is free, with a portion of proceeds from all sales going to Women’s Health Clinic.

Spice up your life

Can you handle Winnipeg’s hottest sauces? Put your spice tolerance to the test for a good cause at next week’s Hot Wing Challenge hosted by Regenesis Centre for Recovery, a local live-in addiction treatment centre.

Participants will be tasked with eating increasingly spicy chicken wings doused in locally made hot sauces from the likes of Fat Iguana, Komera, Mr. Max and other brands.

The spicy fundraiser kicks off at 7 p.m. on March 14 at KitchenSync, 370 Donald St. Tickets are $25 at Eventbrite.

New food coming to North K

Chef Kris Kopansky, former director of operations at Brazen Hall, and his wife Corinne have set out to open their “dream restaurant” in the heart of North Kildonan.

Bull & Filly, a 100-seat contemporary casual eatery, is slated to open in the NorVilla Hotel, 1763 Henderson Hwy. in June. The breakfast, lunch and dinner spot will feature “locally rooted dishes, global flavours and fresh ingredients.”

The couple is also taking over food service for the hotel’s bar and catering arm. Follow their journey on Facebook and Instagram (@bullandfilly).

— Compiled by Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. Visit here to sign up for our twice-monthly food and drink newsletter.