When Hannah McPherson took her children for their usual walk along Aberdeen beach in March last year, the most she hoped for was a pleasant stroll on a spring day.
What she didn’t expect was that a chance conversation would propel her to start her own bakery business.
Stopping that day at Cairn Coffee, the coffee shack down at the Fittie end of the beach, Hannah chatted to owners Sam and Rob.
They told her their baker was no longer working for them so all she could have with her coffee was a Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer.
For Hannah, who has biscotti in her blood through Italian roots on her mother’s side, this was all the invitation she needed.
“I came home from the beach,” she continues, “whipped up a batch and popped them down. [Cairn Coffee] said: ‘Perfect. Do you want to make this a weekly thing?’”
Baked Biscotti ‘just added arms and legs’
The conversation was the start of Baked Biscotti, the home-baking business Hannah set up to keep Cairn supplied with the Italian almond biscuits known around the world as biscotti.
Almost a year on and the business has grown. She started making vegan shortbread for the coffee shack, after her dad – a keen open swimmer and regular at Cairn – suggested it would be a hit.
“I do tray bakes for them now, too,” adds Hannah, 31. “This week I made a coffee cake and some brookies. It’s just kind of added arms and legs.”
The link-up with Cairn has been a boon for the dog-walkers, cyclists and surfers of fittie who now have a whole lot more than a Tunnock’s wafer to go with their steaming cups of coffee.
And it has also been a life-changer for Hannah, who manages to juggle the demands of the business with bringing up two young children – three-year-old Seb and lockdown baby Lola, who is just 14-months.
She says she couldn’t do it without the amazing support she gets from her family, especially as her partner Adam Roberts is often away from home working offshore in Norway.
So was she looking for extra responsibilities when Cairn came calling? Or is Baked Biscotti the result of serendipity?
“It was a mix of mercies, really,” says Hannah, who holidays frequently in Italy and before doing it professionally would bake biscotti for friends and family.
“I was like, oh, I’m pretty sure I can make some biscotti. I’ve been taught a few times.”
Baking a salve after inspirational gran’s death
Italy is not the only inspiration for Hannah. Many of her cakes are from recipes taught to her as a child by her Hopeman granny, Anna Jack.
Since Christmas, however, those recipes have taking on new meaning after the death of her gran at the age of 87.
“It’s been a rough ride over Christmas,” says Hannah, whose grandmother was renowned in Hopeman for her apple pies, which used fruit from her large garden.
But Hannah says baking has kept her going.
And she’s proud to continue her grandmother’s legacy by baking pies with apples from her own garden in Old Aberdeen.
“When we moved in, we found two very overgrown apple trees in our garden,” Hannah says.
“It was almost like it was meant to be.”
Baked Biscotti is available from Cairn Coffee on Aberdeen beach. Click here for latest opening times.
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