A MILLISLE baker who sought solace in baking to overcome anxiety, has revealed her award-winning sweet treats have wowed royalty.
Jenny Watson, a mother of two, has been running her at-home bakery, The Witchery Bakeshop, since 2021, after the birth of her second child, Rowan.
The local woman threw herself into the world of baking to help reclaim her identity and combat postpartum anxiety, a condition she struggled with greatly after the birth of her eldest child, Cece, now aged six.
Since then Jenny has won the Ards and North Down Platinum Pudding competition, held in honour of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee last May.
At the celebrations Jenny’s honey bundt cake wowed Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, who was the Countess of Wessex at the time of sampling the baker’s sweet treat.
This dish was then served by world class chef, Jean-Christophe Novelli, who prepared it along with South Eastern Regional College (SERC) students, for the Big Festival Lunch in Bangor.
Jenny says she got involved in the world of baking after spending almost three months in her bedroom after the birth of her daughter.
“I had my daughter, who is nearly seven now, and I had really bad postnatal anxiety with her. I couldn’t leave the bedroom for three months,” she said.
“I was really panicking about leaving the house. I felt as though I had lost a sense of myself, my identity, like a lot of mums who go through that.
“I had a few miscarriages in between, then when I eventually had my son a few years ago, I didn’t want to go through the same thing again,” added Jenny.
As a lover of things that go bump in the night, Halloween and various myths are a key feature in the Millisle woman’s products.
“I love things like Halloween and all of the spooky things, as I felt like it was a key part of my persona,” she said.
“I latched on to that, and thought if I could develop a bakery, that would help me focus on something and get me through those tough first few months of having a baby, keeping my identity at the forefront of my mind.”
The first taste of success in the culinary front for Jenny was at the Ards and North Down Platinum Pudding Competition last May.
Taking inspiration from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Jenny created a honey cake with edible petals, all fitting the theme of a ‘pudding fit for a queen’.
“I went down the route of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and thought I would make something that is fit for the queen of the fairies,” she explained.
“So, I came up with this midsummer honey bundt cake. It had edible petals and a custard glaze. It looked really regal and pretty.”
“The Duchess was the Countess of Wessex at the time and she had a taste, and we had a conversation about it. The next day, Jean-Christophe Novelli had made it with all of the SERC students, for the big festival lunch they were having.”
As a result of this baking victory, Jenny began attending SERC part-time in June 2022, where she studied professional baking.
Now, with a few weeks left of her professional bakery course, Jenny is supplying two local cafés with her baked delights. These are the Coffee Yard in Holywood and Betsy Gray’s at Six Road Ends.
The new workload means that a few weeks ago, Jenny quit her job at Creative Gardens in Donaghadee to fully pursue her dreams.
“It’s a part time professional bakery course, as I thought a hands-on approach would be really beneficial and having someone there to ask all of the questions I had.
“Working as a till assistant wasn’t my dream, whereas with baking, I can work it around the kids,” explains Jenny.
