Wish Upon A Cake

On the lookout for some delicious baked treats in County Tyrone? Look no further! Here’s what Chris and Natasha of Wish Upon A Cake had to say about Gortin’s first ever “cakery”…

1. So guys, tell us about Wish Upon A Cake…

Wish Upon a Cake is a little something different based on Main Street, Gortin in the heart of Co. Tyrone. It is run by husband and wife team, Chris and Natasha McKendry and it is Gortin’s very first Cakery. Offering everything from fresh scones made from recipes passed down through generations, to traybakes of all shapes, sizes and flavours, to our delicious Cruffins (Google it, you won’t be disappointed).

2. How did it come about? What’s the story behind it?

Natasha has had a dream ever since she started baking with her Nanny at home, that she wanted to have her own shop someday, selling homemade buns and treats. Fast forward almost 30 years and due to lockdown last year and losing her job, she decided to start baking from her home kitchen to make ends meet. One customer led to another and before we knew it, we were supplying 5 coffee shops with our buns and had 6 large retailers stocking our Treat Bags.

We outgrew the kitchen very quickly and came across a perfect spot on Gortin Main Street, 5 minutes from our home that had everything we needed to expand and move forward.

Now, we supply 8 restaurants / cafes with our treats, and have our Treat Bags in 9 locations across NI!

3. Under normal circumstances, can customers sit in?

We are takeaway only (for now).

4. What treats do you have on offer? Do you have a speciality?

We offer everything from our ever popular Biscoff Caramel Squares, to cupcakes and freshly made scones. We change up every item on the counter each week to keep things interesting, and why not?

Our speciality at the moment is our Cruffins (Croissant / muffin hybrid). These are a thinly rolled pastry, stuffed with our flavour of choice that week. The people’s choice seems to be Nutella, topped with a big fresh strawberry!

We also have our very own range of Wish Upon a Cake coffee, which can be purchased in the shop in Beans or Ground form.

5. Which nearby local attractions would you recommend?

We are blessed to be close to so many naturally beautiful spots here in Gortin. Within a 10 minute drive you have the Gortin Lakes, which are growing so popular for some locals with cold water swimming. Then just on through the Glens you can find the Gortin Glens Forest Park which has a brand new children’s play area, and afterwards you can tire them out with a walk around the Forest itself to see the Sika Deer enclosure.

If you’re feeling energetic after your coffee and bun, you can always trek up Mullaghcarn, where you’ll find the most breath-taking views at the top.

6. Are you open all year round?

We are currently open on a Friday from 12pm-4pm and Saturday from 10am-4pm. The rest of the week we are baking and preparing our Treat Bags to go out across the country.

As this is our first year, we haven’t locked those days and times down and may well have the shop open a few more days in the summer months.

7. Do you have any big plans for the future?

Short term we would love to open the shop more to see how that pans out. Long term our dream is to have another Wish Upon a Cake shop. Chris is from Bushmills and has family there, so we have ties up around the coast and would love to take our treats there.

For now, we’re concentrating on our first year and making sure we enjoy the journey and we’ll see where it goes.

8. What’s your favourite thing about Wish Upon A Cake?

We envisioned this years ago, and always joked about having our own bakery in the village, but that’s all it ever was: a joke and a pipe dream. Jobs and our boys took priority and we settled for that. Lockdown opened up new avenues for us and we decided we needed to give it a go, and we haven’t looked back since. It’s provided us the opportunity to spend more quality time with our 3 boys and also meet some amazing new friends along the way.

We’re literally living our dream.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

Find out more about Wish Upon A Cake here.

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