Mary Macleod's Shortbread

The delicious, rich and buttery aroma of shortbread is unmistakable. It fills the quaint and cozy Mary Macleod’s Shortbread shop, emanating every morning from four ovens in the back kitchen. The recipe was handed down from grandmother, to mother and then to Mary. All-butter, all-natural and handmade, it’s a recipe that Mary could barely keep on the shelves back in 1981 when she first opened her shop. “There were lineups out the door and then within a couple of hours, all the cookies would be gone,” Mary remembers.

When one hears about the time, care and precision that Mary puts into developing her recipes, it’s no wonder the shortbread was a sell-out. Her signature Chocolate Crunch shortbread took over 18 months to develop — often at the early hours of the night, well after the shop was closed. Mary still remembers the moment in which she finally perfected the recipe, with the help of some neighbourhood volunteer tasters.

“The police station was just up the road from the bakery and they’d come and check in on me at two or three in the morning,” Mary says. “They’d knock on the window and got to eat all my kitchen disasters. When I finally got the recipe right, they said ‘Mary, you did it!’”