Sweet treat journey wraps up at cookie café

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This article was published 23/12/2020 (2072 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Frenchway Café and Bakery found out this holiday season that people can live without a lot of things.

Croissants are not one of them, says owner Larissa Webster, who helped start Frenchway in 2008.

Focusing on the flaky French staple, along with the constant demand for baked bread and other products Frenchway bakers make from scratch, has kept the Lilac Street business and its staff of 19 running at peak capacity even though pandemic restrictions mean the café portion of the business remains closed.

Much of the work is time-consuming; it takes two days for a baker to make a batch of croissants, Webster says. It also takes that long for Frenchway bakers to prepare all those sheets of puff pastry from scratch — a process that many home cooks find so frustrating that frozen versions at the grocery store became hugely popular.

So when Christmas time arrives, even during a pandemic, the bakery is buzzing.

“The team I have are amazing; I’m in a really good place with them,” Webster says. “They really pull together, especially with COVID, keeping things going in an industry where people are getting rocked pretty hard.

“For me, I’m a single mom with two kids, and then I have my 19 kids at the café, and they call me Mama Bear.”

While Frenchway is as busy as ever during the buildup to Christmas, the stresses of the pandemic have made things more difficult for everyone, she says.

“Usually at Christmas I only close on the 25th and 26th. But my staff are pretty exhausted. It’s not just the exhaustion of work, but the emotional exhaustion from what’s going on in all their lives. It’s tough,” Webster says. “It’s happening everywhere. People are just tired; it’s COVID fatigue.”

So Frenchway will close Dec. 25 and won’t reopen until the 29th to let everyone recharge their batteries. 

“My staff are so excited. They’re like, ‘Four days off in a row!’ They’re going to enjoy the break,” Webster says.

Webster will likely enjoy the break too. Not only does she run the business, but she also volunteers to collect Christmas hamper donations to go to some of Winnipeg’s women’s shelters.

Last week, when she wasn’t directing traffic at Frenchway, she was behind the wheel in her van delivering hampers that will go to women who have had to leave their homes, often with their children, to escape abusive relationships.

“It’s a very traumatic event and they usually leave with nothing,” Webster says. “We start collecting items in November and December and provide gift bags so that each woman at a shelter gets a gift bag. Some of them are necessity items, but we try to get stuff, something a little fancier, like a gift, something that’s pampering. Plus we add hats, mitts and scarves.”

So with all the Christmas hubbub at Frenchway’s bakery, it may be no surprise that its bakers have offered a simple recipe for the final day of the Free Press‘s 12 Days of Christmas Cookies. 

If you’ve been following the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies since it began this year on Dec. 10, thank you and congratulations; it’s time to turn off the oven, clean the dishes and get ready for your scaled down Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

If you want to look back at the entire list of recipes from this year’s project, they can all be found here.

Finally, we’d like to thank those who have shared recipes with readers this year: Kristina Majowski and Shannon MacTavish of White Birch Bakery, Eejay Chua of Baon Bistro/Manila Nights; Ave Dinzey of Purple Hibiscus; Jon Hochman of Gunn’s Bakery; Larissa Webster of Frenchway Café and Bakery; authors Doreen Pengracs and Maureen Flynn, Diabetes Canada and home bakers Janine LeGal, Denise Comeault, Patricia Amaral and Sandra Hirschfeldt.

Merry Christmas, and here’s to a happy, and sweeter 2021.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca   Twitter:@AlanDSmall

Alan Small
Reporter

Alan Small has been a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the latest being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.

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