Dean’s of Huntly

Shortbread is a perfect symbol of a Scottish tea time. I always end up eating some with a coffee on the train on a northbound journey. After visiting Dean’s of Huntly, though, those have never tasted quite the same. Helen Dean started Dean’s of Huntly in 1975, from the kitchen of their family home. It was never intended as a profit-making business venture, but her husband, Bill senior persuaded her to sell the shortbread to raise money for the Huntly pipe band, in which he was the drummer.

The shortbread soon got a reputation for its melt-in-the-mouth texture, due mainly to the Locherbie butter, wheat flour and cornflour, as used in Bill’s mum’s original recipe, although he remembered margarine being used when he was younger, as indeed did my grandmother.