Healing power of baking brought Mum back from the darkness
It was a shared childhood ritual that in later life created a small miracle ...
OFTEN, days pass — sometimes even weeks — without Julie Jones’s mother ever really looking at her. Lost in the fog of dementia, her mind drifts, her gaze blank and uncertain.
So Julie didn’t dare hope for much when she recently presented her mum, Joyce Armstrong, with the first published copy of the book she’d written. Perhaps a flicker of a smile, some hint of pride or interest.
‘Oh Mum,’ she sighed. ‘If only you knew what this was.’ Suddenly, their eyes met in a rare, startling moment of lucidity. ‘Oh, I know,’ Joyce said. Julie, 40, was deeply moved by this glimpse of her ‘real’ mother, the gentle, loving woman who has been transformed by her illness into someone unrecognisably anxious and unpredictable. She can’t say for sure how much her mother understood —- such is the cruel nature of Alzheimer’s, eroding memory and clarity piece by piece while leaving traces of the sufferer’s personality intact — but the spark of recognition was unmistakable.
‘I always speak to her as if she can hear me properly, because I do believe she’s still in there,’ Julie says.
‘It hurts to think it — that she’s trapped in her mind — but every now and again I get a reaction, and it makes me think she can understand everything.’ The moment of connection was all the more significant to Julie because her book is a heartfelt tribute to her 74-year-old mother.
Called Soulful Baker, it documents a lifetime in her mother’s kitchen — and how, when Joyce became ill, baking was the one activity that could restore some sense of her old self.
‘I remember being very small, and feeling very important standing on a stool in the kitchen alongside my mother, her apron folded in half and tied around my waist,’ says Julie, who herself has three
children — 17-year-old Evan, Oscar, six, and Myles, four. ‘I used to love it when she suggested we bake. She’d give me a big wooden spoon and a ceramic bowl so I could beat away. We had no fancy equipment or anything and she didn’t care about mess. We just made easy things, like sponge cakes.’
AND so, to honour her mother, Julie wrote a recipe book. While it’s stuffed with current family favourites, it also includes the simple, traditional recipes Julie and her mother baked together in the months before dementia took her away completely; the simple acts of stirring, pouring and piping inducing rare moments of calm at a time when Joyce’s behaviour was unpredictable and erratic.
‘She was very frightened and confused,’ recalls Julie. ‘She’d lost four-and-a-half stone because she barely ate, she didn’t want to wash and always wanted to wear the same clothes. She was repetitive too, asking me questions over and over and pulling on my arm if I didn’t look at her and listen.
‘It was so distressing to see her like that, one day I just said, “Come on, let’s make a cake.” That was the turning point.’
Julie pulled out ingredients from the cupboards — sugar, flour, vanilla essence — unsure if her mother could follow a recipe or if she’d get frustrated and angry. Instead, something incredible happened.
‘Her anxiety disappeared and the repetitiveness and arm pulling just stopped,’ says Julie. ‘I’d give her the sieve and flour and she’d automatically start sieving, the movements clearly ingrained from years of baking although she couldn’t even fasten a button on her skirt at that stage.
‘It was the same when I gave her a rolling pin, or a spoon to stir cake mixture. As long as she was baking, the frustrated furrows in her forehead completely smoothed out and she seemed so peaceful.’
Their baking began in January 2015, four years after Joyce’s diagnosis, and lasted for three months. Joyce was still living at home with her husband Gerry, a few kilometres from Julie’s house, and the bakes became a twice-weekly occurrence. They were an oasis of calm for both mother and daughter, each struggling in her own way to deal with a new and frightening reality.
By pure coincidence, Julie had hit on one of the most popular new approaches to dealing with dementia — the benefits to sufferers of recreational activities such as baking have been well-documented in recent years.
ONE American study showed that two weeks of daily participation in a cooking programme resulted in a significant improvement in levels of passivity and agitation for older adults with dementia.
Other research suggests such activities can slow the outward expression of the disease, as well as making sufferers feel happier and calmer.
A 2012 project found that cognitive stimulation therapies — such as discussions, word games, music and baking — had a beneficial effect on memory and thinking in people with dementia. The benefits were still being noted up to three months later, along with improvements in social interaction and communication.
Bright colours, interesting sounds and tactile objects can also appeal to dementia patients who might not be able for other activities, such as conversation or reading.
For Julie, conjuring up delicious food with her mother made perfect sense. ‘My mother was always such a loving person,’ recalls Julie. ‘She was full of cuddles and a great cook too. She and my dad split up when I was a baby, so she worked two jobs to keep me and my two older brothers going, but she was never happier than when all her family were around the table and she could serve up her delicious roast beef dinner on a Sunday.
‘She wasn’t happy unless you’d accepted some kind of food — when you walked into our house, you’d have a full breakfast on your lap if you stayed longer than 20 minutes!
‘Her food was always full of butter and homely comfort. If I could have one of her roast beef dinners just one more time, I’d be in heaven!’
As she baked side by side with her mother, Julie found herself recalling childhood memories, taking the time to relive and savour every moment, for she knew her mother’s disease was progressing every day.
‘She was getting more and more anxious and eventually couldn’t bear anything touching her, not even her little finger, so we had to stop baking,’ says Julie.
Not long after, Joyce was taken into respite care, which turned into a permanent stay.
Although a sensible decision, it was heartbreaking for Julie. She found herself baking furiously each night, losing herself for hours in the fine details.
‘It was awful,’ says Julie. ‘I didn’t realise at the time but I was grieving. My youngest was just a newborn and I missed my mum horribly; as a Nana to them, but also as my best friend.
‘I used to talk to her about everything but we hadn’t had a proper conversation in years because of her illness. I turned to baking as something creative to focus my mind. ‘My husband Jonah worked away a lot, so every night I’d put the kids to bed and come downstairs when the house was quiet, switch the oven on and bake for hours, sometimes until midnight. ‘I loved making pretty chocolate flowers or meringue kisses, immersing myself in it.’ Julie started posting her stunning
creations on her Instagram account — cinnamon rolls, harvest loaves, a tri-coloured apple pie — sharing her mother’s story alongside the pictures and gaining an impressive following of more than 39,000 people.
A publisher saw her work and the idea for Soulful Baker was born, with her mother woven into every page.
Even now, Julie’s baking still gives her mum simple pleasure.
‘My mother is now bedridden but she’s developed a really sweet tooth with the dementia and I always take in my bakes to the care home. Her favourite is a custard tart — I can tell from the sparkle in her eyes how much she enjoys it,’ says Julie.
‘She’s going through a very calm and content stage at the moment, and while most of the time she doesn’t seem to know me and hates any form of touch, the other week she grabbed my hand and said, “I love you”.
‘I was completely overwhelmed. It was so wonderful to hear those words and yet it kills me to think she’s in there, trapped inside her brain.
‘She also recently allowed me to stroke her face and kept saying, “you’re lovely”. I even think I heard the word “daughter”, which made me cry.’
Julie is currently on her book tour, signing copies at bookshops and she always takes along a carrot cake for the customers.
‘It’s my mother’s recipe and it is the best carrot cake ever. It feels like she’s in the room with me,’ she says. After all, this book is hers; I could never have done it without her.’
SOULFUL BAKER, published by Quarto Publishing PLC, is available for €28, easons.com. Find more recipes and updates from Julie on Instagram: @julie_jonesuk