Baking For Art, From The Heart
We’ll have to bake another batch.
It’s been a theme of High Tea Bakery since Belinda Bigold and her mom, Carol, opened the bakery 16 years ago with family recipes an investment of $300 each.
Carol’s baking first reached a wider audience when she sold decorated cookies as a fundraiser for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Melanie Bigold was accepted into the professional division of the RWB when she was nine years old. Carol didn’t want her daughter living in residence, so the family of seven moved to Winnipeg from Powell River, BC. Though the years, they all became involved in the organization. At 14, Belinda was the RWB’s part time receptionist, dad Mike was the box office manager and then facilities manager, Carol worked in development and Belinda’s siblings all danced there.
While supporting dance was the bakery’s first tie to the arts, the connection has continued. Most recently, High Tea’s signature imperials were sold at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s spring concerts. The first weekend, they thought they’d start with 70 boxes of a dozen cookies each, looking to sell 35 boxes per concert. All sold out before the Friday concert started. The following weekend, they upped the count to 300 boxes for three concerts. All 3,600 cookies were sold before the first note of Saturday night’s concert.
“We were amazed at how enthusiastic our symphony patrons were about this way of supporting the WSO. I have realized the Girl Guides are on to something with funding projects through cookie sales,” quipped Trudy Schroeder, executive director of the WSO. “I joked with my colleagues that we might be the only professional symphony orchestra in the world that will fund its operations on the proceeds of cookie sales.”
High Tea has a long-standing relationship with Prairie Theatre Exchange, creating custom opening night cookies for their productions. High Tea goodies have also been featured at special events including the 2014 Juno Awards, the 67th Golden Globes, and the 80th Academy Awards Ceremony.
While most of the offerings originated with family recipes Carol learned from her mother while growing up in Australia, the recipe for High Tea imperials were developed by Carol, now retired, and Belinda from scratch. Both the full and mini-sized versions are best-sellers, and High Tea imperials were among the treats selected to be served to Queen Elizabeth on a royal visit to Winnipeg in 2010. Any royal activity, including the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, and the recent birth of their son, equal high demand for the elegant sandwich cookies filled with a thin layer of jam and enrobed in white icing.
High Tea uses butter from Notre Dame Creamery in Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba – as much as 150 pounds per week. Eggs are supplied by Nature’s Farm in Steinbach. Ingredients not available locally are selected from the best quality available, including the Nielsen-Massey brand extracts they source and also sell alongside teas from Bellocq Tea Atelier of Brooklyn, NY, and Canadian classic Murchie’s Tea.
Keeping the business thriving hasn’t always been easy, beginning with the early days at their first location at 941 Portage Ave. “We grew out of the space so fast. We were balancing trays stacked to the ceiling,” recalls Belinda. When they moved to the current location at 2103 Portage Ave., business continued to grow. In 2014-15, they undertook a renovation project Belinda describes as horrible, marked by construction difficulties, flooding inside their building and a fire at the property next door.
The lessons learned served to strengthen her core belief in business. “If you support the community, the community supports you. We would have gone under otherwise. If you are kind, and people know you are genuinely interested, they will pay you back with their loyalty and support.”
