Quietly cheerful and wearing a smile as often as she wears her apron, Cheryl Thomas embodies what many would describe as a prototypical pastry chef.
The married mother of two grown boys (23 and 26) has a story that is anything but typical. As the brains and culinary skills behind New Sudbury bakery Queen's Cakes, Thomas has travelled quite the road to get to where she is today.
Cheryl's journey really begins with her two boys. When the two were 13 and 16 and the family lived in India, Cheryl was keeping correspondence with a pen pal here in Sudbury.
"She told me that Sudbury was very nice community to raise children and that they could get a good education, without a lot of distractions," said Cheryl.
Eventually, she and husband, Jerry, packed up and immigrated to Sudbury in 2007, where the boys were enrolled at St. Benedict's Secondary School.
The move has paid off thus far as the couple's younger son is working as an engineer in Lloydminster, AB, while the eldest is finishing his post-secondary education at Laurentian University's Northern Ontario School of Medicine.
Now that her boys are making their own way, Thomas has dedicated much of her time to her home-based business, though her past career as a professor in India has been a tough habit to break and she offers cake decorating and baking courses at Queen's Cakes.
She worked a few different jobs when she first arrived in Sudbury, before enrolling in a hobby course for cake decorating. Her background in arts and crafts, along with some baking and confectionary classes in India translated well into the art of cake decorating, and she was hooked.
"I enrolled in a pastry chef course at Cambrian College in 2010 and after I finished that I stared working at Custom Cakes until they closed," said Thomas.
"I saw that a number of the larger, commercial bakeries and cake shops in Sudbury were closing down so I decided to start my own business, but as an order-only service."
Queen's Cakes has been operating under that model since 2014, and has catered weddings, birthdays, and a number of other social events.
True to her roots, Cheryl's specialty is in Indian sweets, as well as Indian street food such as samosas, but her cake decorating skill is top-notch as well, and has garnered business from all over Northern Ontario.
"We get a lot of orders from Manitoulin, Whitefish, even people from Sault Ste. Marie have come into town to pick up orders while they're here," said Thomas.
All of the work is done in the Thomas family home's basement, which has been renovated into a small-scale commercial kitchen with everything you'd find in a storefront bakery. The luxury of working from home is not lost on Cheryl, who enjoys the freedom it affords her.
"There aren't as many of the costs associated with owning a storefront when you work from home," said Thomas. "There's little to no waste with an order-based model, and I'm able to set my own hours."
While husband Jerry isn't shy about heaping praise on his wife for being at the forefront of the business, Cheryl says that he and her sons are very helpful in keeping things running smoothly.
"There are certain ingredients for the Indian sweets that I make that you can't find in Sudbury," said Cheryl. "He (Jerry) has a friend in Toronto who he goes to visit and brings the ingredients back. My son in Lloydminster also found a place that sells ingredients and he either brings them back with him or sends them to me."
While other bake shops in Sudbury have come and gone, Cheryl Thomas is hoping to be around for the long haul.
To check out some of Cheryl's creations, place an order, or sign up for a cake decorating class, check out QueensCakes.ca.
