Look delicious don't they? But you can only buy two - and you'll need to be in the queue by 7.30am. Mailman joins the (huge) crowds at Scotland's hottest new bakery
Growing up, she would practise for hours on end in the single-minded pursuit of pastry precision.
After much elbow grease – and a ton of butter - Darcie Maher had perfected croissants that ballooned to the size of a boxer’s fist with fine lines of lamination running through them like the rings of an ancient oak.
She opened her own shop where she displayed these bronzed and gleaming jewels in special glass-fronted cabinets like the ones in fancy haberdasher’s alongside other beautifully crafted delicacies, all identically sized and smartly arranged in neat rows.
If she baked them, Ms Maher believed, they would come. And what is more, they would come pretty darn early in the morning.
It is barely 7.30am on a breezy Thursday and I find myself in a rapidly-growing queue outside what has quickly become one of the hippest and most talked about bakeries in the land. Lannan, in the heart of Edinburgh’s modish Stockbridge area, will not open its doors for another half an hour and already more than 20 people are waiting in line to get their hands on its precious wares.
Darcie Maher is living her dream as she creates delightful delicacies at her bakery
Some of the tasty treats on offer at the Lannan Bakery in the heart of Edinburgh
The shop has only been open a year, but it is already a viral sensation on TikTok while the @lannanbakery Instagram account boasts 59,000 followers and @darciebakes a further 38,000 with its droolworthy pictures of exquisitely designed and photographed food.
Last month, Lannan (derived from the Gaelic for ‘house’) received La Liste’s prestigious Pastry Opening of the Year Award 2024. This global prize, bestowed on ‘impressive newcomers to the pastry scene that deserve recognition’, is only going to make those queues longer, although judging by the customer’s accents, Ms Maher – still only 26 - is already an international star.
The queue is peppered with Americans who have Lannan on their bucket list, while there is a light dusting of Japanese tourists among the locals.
A friendly lady in front of me who lives nearby turns out to be from Holland originally.
The heady scent of enriched dough wafts lazily down the street, by turns torturing and exciting the senses of the salivating queue.
At its head is Michelle, a self-confessed foodie and teacher, from Massachusetts, who is ‘super-happy’ just to be here: ‘When I booked the trip it never occurred to me that Lannan was only open Thursday to Sunday and we would be in Edinburgh on exactly the days it was closed.
‘I was crushed to the point of trying to convince my husband Ed we could stop off here and still make our flight, but he said no way. When we woke up at 5am this morning to find our flight was delayed by two hours, I’ve never been happier. My first response was, “I can go to Lannan!”’
She added: ‘From what I’ve read, Lannan have really been playing around with different ingredients and ways to do it and it’s such a pleasure to see people giving their time to good food.’
One local couple join along with their pet dog, a tiny fluffy thing who seems to understand the command ‘wait’ without being told twice.
One young woman struggles to contain two giant birthday balloons as she looks anxiously at the time: ‘It’s my boyfriend’s birthday and I wanted to get him something for breakfast, but he may leave for work before I can get back,’ she said.
Another American, Caroline, 28, has lived in Edinburgh for ten years where she works as a psychologist.
She said the queue can often stretch back to the pedestrian lights a good 50 yards away along the city’s Hamilton Place. ‘I’ve only been a couple of times. I
t’s a half-hour walk from where I live,’ she said. ‘I am a bit of a foodie I guess, which is why I come to places like this.
They do a really nice pain Suisse and a nice cardamom bun as well. I think the unusual flavour combinations attract people and the beautiful aesthetic - they look really nice on the inside as well.’
At 8am, we file in. “Only six customers at a time,” says a sign on the door, while a second one reminds us we can only buy two of each pastry.
The limit was introduced after customers started to complain bitterly when they sold out of buns within two hours.
Those still outside peer through the huge front windows gilded with the words ‘Bakery’ and ‘Viennoiserie’ and past the small army of staff in branded t-shirts to catch a glimpse of their food hero, who is too preoccupied with her Wonka-esque pursuit of pastry perfection and endless reinvention of flavour combinations to leave her kitchen.
Raised in the Scottish Borders, from the age of nine Ms Maher knew she wanted to be a baker. Cooking had always been a part of her childhood, with any pocket money that came her way spent on miniature versions of her art teacher mother’s cookware.
She would spend afternoons baking with friends and turning to a well-thumbed children’s cookbook for some of her earliest bakes – with some failures along the way. Like the time she left salt out of her bread rolls, thinking it would be healthier: ‘Now, of course, I know that if you don’t put salt in bread, it’s pretty inedible,’ she would recall.
By the age of 12, she had the fundamentals and started baking for a café where her sister worked and remembers the excitement of being paid to bake. One of her early favourites was a Jamie Oliver chocolate sponge with flaked almonds running through it.
It all focused her ambition and after leaving school, she spent 11 years in professional kitchens, including a stint at Edinburgh restaurant The Palmerston, before branching out on her own.
‘It’s just always what I wanted to do,’ she said in a recent interview. ‘I think I’ve stayed true to the things I like, in the sense of design and what we make.
We’ve worked by not expanding, doing things on quite a small scale and giving freedom to the staff to make things of their own.’
She can still do simple: her signature pink-glazed custard slices, yum yums and iced buns, but it’s always flawless and often with a zingy twist.
The cinnamon buns, filled with brown sugar and cinnamon butter, have a baked creme fraiche and orange custard centre.
They’re glazed hot with rum syrup and topped with a little salty cinnamon sugar because, as Ms Maher explains on her Instagram page, ‘pastry should be seasoned just as well as everything else!’
Ms Maher has quickly built a following for her creative bakes and innovative flavour pairings and her championing of local producers.
Lannan is equally adept at savoury, which have included pastries filled with tomato, confit garlic and goat’s cheese, or fermented wild garlic, Tunworth & preserved lemon, or merguez sausage, braised fennel & monte enebro cheese.
While some deliberate carefully over their choices, I find myself splurging on a blood plum and hazelnut danish, a pistachio and white chocolate pain Suisse, a chocolate and cherry bun, a cardamom bun, and a honey, oat and brown butter bun.
There may have been other things thrown in – I lost count. I blame the heady aroma of sugar.
But the complex flavour pairing work beautifully – the artfully arranged sweet-sharp plum against the lightly toasted hazelnut; a slight saltiness from the brown butter complementing the sticky honey.
I also choose a potato, fontina and pickled chanterelle Danish – a bit like a giant vol-au-vent - which has just the right amount of vinegary tang and cheesy comfort.
Tearing greedily into one of the voluminous pains au chocolat, whose rich butteriness is lifted by their filling of single-source chocolate from the Glasgow-based artisan producer Bare Bones Chocolate, I feel an almost Proustian rush of childhood memories, where sun-dappled morning trips to rural French boulangeries are forever burned on my soul.
Some in the queue emerge with similar armfuls while others clutch a more modest box of delights. Julia travelled up from Manchester with her brother Robbie, who is on holiday from Texas. She said: ‘I bought a honey nduja bun, which has got a lovely spicy kick to it.
I also bought two others to try – a cardamom bun and something with pistachio - and a croissant for my husband when we get back to Manchester on the train later today.’
It seems rather ambitious to imagine anyone resisting the sweet aroma wafting from this golden-hued delicacy much beyond the Border, let alone all the way to the West Midlands.
People wait outside for the chance to get their hands on sweet and savoury treats
Robbie chose the classic pain au chocolat and here was our first note of controversy: ‘It’s very nice, but it could use more chocolate,’ he said after taking an almighty mouthful of crispy dough. ‘But I can always do with more chocolate.
It’s very good though. The crust is probably the best part, but it was worth the wait I would say.’
American Michelle hurries out of the shop with her stash in a Lannan tote bag to where Ed is waiting in the hire car to whisk them to the airport. One more satisfied customer.
By mid-morning, fresh fruit tarts emerge from the bustling kitchens – huge slices of Amalfi lemon or Rainier, morello & petit noir cherry tart with pistachio custard have featured recently – to replenish the stocks.
The bakery’s opening hours suggest it stays open until 4pm, but staff often bring the shutters down after 1pm as the last treats are bagged and boxed and paid for.
As the doors close and customers munch greedily on their bakes, Darcie Maher may well feel that she, too, has got her just desserts.
