- Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

Perhaps you should consider the future benefits when you are choosing presents for the children in your life.

Robyn Armstrong, now a respected pastry chef competing for GreatestBaker, started by making little tiny 3-layer cakes in her Easy-Bake oven back in Owen Sound.

Robyn started working as a pastry cook back when she was 14 or 15 at Cobble Beach's Sweetwater Restaurant, and continued working there through high school at St. Mary's. After grade 12, she went to George Brown College in Toronto for a two- year Baking & Pastry Arts program.

Canadian celebrity chef Mark McEwan and his culinary team came to Cobble Beach for a dinner while she was there, and Robyn considers herself very fortunate to have collaborated with them on the dessert portion of the menu. Following the dinner, she was offered an externship at McEwen's ONE restaurant at the luxury Hazelton Hotel in Yorkville in Toronto.

Between semesters and once she finished post secondary school, she always ended up back in Owen Sound, working at the European Bakery and The Milk Maid. She saved her money to move to the opportunities of bigger cities. Once her program was finished, she attended a Culinary College program at St. Clair College in Windsor while her partner completed university there.

Robyn eventually settled on Waterloo with her high school sweetheart Gary, and began working  as a Pastry Cook at Wildcraft Grill & Long Bar in 2016. Now four years later she is the Pastry Chef at Wildcraft.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working some Chef Dinners with Jamie Kennedy, Michael Olson, Anna Olson, Ted Reader. I’m so lucky to work with so many amazing people,” says Robyn. “I am so fortunate to be doing what I love every day.”

To vote for Robyn in the Greatest Baker contest - click here!