Covid has certainly tested the fate of many businesses, especially in the food industry. But after 61 years, Leinala’s Bakery knows all about adapting and embracing change.
Elli Leinala’s first baking gig was feeding the Finnish army during World War II at 15 years of age.
After the war, in 1959, she closed the Helsinki bakery she owned with her sister to start a new life with her husband, Arvi, and their four children in Sudbury.
Melvin Avenue in the Donovan was the first location in 1961.
From there, the bakery relocated to Antwerp Street as it allowed for a family living quarters above it.
Three generations later, the grandchildren, Aaron Laakso and Erika Caron are feeding the masses on Caswell Drive in the South End.
Laakso is the head baker who logs the most hours, while Caron is the manager, cake decorator and goods purchaser.
“My father, Marku, still helps with the books and the seasonal rush. Mom, Marjaana, retired in 2018 as the bakery was very labour intensive,” she said.
Intensive does not begin to describe the work done behind the scenes at Leinala’s. Simple ingredients are used like sugar, flour, eggs and butter to make yummy treats. It’s tedious work that Caron feels stays true to Finnish traditions.
“We work ’50s style in this bakery. It is hard to find people nowadays who can work the way we do. We braid pulla by hand, we do all our cookie shaping by hand and the cakes. Nothing is really pre-purchased except for the jams used for fillings,” Caron said.
Sudburians near and far know all about the bakery’s raspberry filled jelly pig sugar donuts. Hence the #homeofthejellypig hashtag on the bakery’s Instagram page.
The bakery is also known for its pulla, cinnamon buns, turnovers and other Finnish goodies, like the cardamom and cinnamon S-shaped cookies and Bebe pink tarts.
Other desserts are the toca almond tarts and for special occasions, you can order the buttercream cakes filled with peaches and apricots and moistened with rum and sugar water. Caron makes these cakes just as her mother and grandmother, Elli, did, even though Caron never had a chance to meet the matriarch in person.
If you are hungry for more than just dessert, the store’s deli space is stocked daily with Finnish rice and meat pies.
All food must be taken to go as the cafe portion of the space was forced to close at the beginning of the pandemic. That means there is more room for imported goods and other items such as a line of sauna essential oils and soaps.
There aren’t many Finnish bakeries left in Northern Ontario, but anyone looking for an Northern European fix can find it at Leinala’s.
Leinala’s Bakery is located at 272 Caswell Drive off Regent Street near the Holiday Inn.
Its bakery hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily except Sundays.
The store does not have a website but it can be found on Facebook.
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury.
