THE area around Edinburgh's Royal Mile fills sightseers with wonder. Its ancient cobbled streets are lined with history tracing back 7000 years. They are also filled with busy tourist shops, pubs and restaurants, which is why, as a non-tourist, I might have just passed it by, had I not been shown this little wonder by a friend.

Around the corner, just off the Royal Mile, is a shop that exudes a modest quaint charm, in both its name and uncontrived vintage decor. Pinnies And Poppyseeds sells the quintessential Scottish bake: handmade shortbread. Its façade boasts a hand-painted window, and inside is a vintage sweet shop cabinet graced with pretty round, petal-edged all-butter shortbread, some flavoured with ingredients such as Earl Grey, pistachio and chocolate. Behind the counter is the bakery itself.

All this sounds typically Scottish maybe, but while you might expect to find a little old Scottish lady labouring behind a kitchen, you are met by an exuberant young American, Jennifer Hunter, who emanates passion about her bakes, proudly using purely local ingredients: Mungoswell flour, organic Scottish butter and British sugar. Intrigued by her journey, I delved a bit deeper into her love for Scotland, and what led her to starting an artisan biscuit bakery, in the heart of the old city.

Jennifer was born in a sunny Californian beach town. "There were no stoplights, no fast food chains, and a rampant peacock problem,” she tells me, before explaining that she first came to Edinburgh for a summer holiday, and fell in love with the city immediately. Some 12 years ago, she returned to the city study for her MSc, and she has never looked back. This feeling resonates with me, as once the captivating magic of Scotland takes you in, it is very little that can keep you away.

But why shortbread and what lead her to opening her own shop – it's a big commitment and risk to take? “The idea for Pinnies and Poppyseeds came to me while I was working for my good friends at the Fudge House of Edinburgh," she tells me. "Making delicious things and seeing how happy it made people.” The Fudge House – a 70-year-old family business – has been a huge influence on her. “They've supported me from the beginning when I first had the idea to start making shortbread," she says. "They let me try recipes out and let their customers sample them – and when they had a cafe in the shop, they let me make stuff and sell it in the shop.”

Customers often asked about shortbread, and finally Jennifer thought: “Why not me? Why couldn't I do it?”

Pinnies And Poppy Seeds started out as a blog, a way of recording Jennifer's experience of setting up this business. “When I started to do markets I didn't want to change my name to anything different so I kept it. I love alliteration, but I also wanted something that merged my two selves: the part of me from California and the part of me here: pinnies – the British word for apron and poppy - the state flower of California.”

She admits that people still come in confused about why her shop doesn’t exclusively sell aprons and bags of poppy seeds! But she doesn’t let this bother her, as the name is an important part of her story.

Jennifer loves Scottish food, which she describes as “just like Scottish people – straightforward and heartwarming”. She loves the simplicity of traditional foods – haggis and black pudding are some of her absolute favourites. A love for wild garlic (Ramsons) is shared by us both, Jennifer loves to forage for it in the spring, and says: “Heading to Roslin each year, down into the glen to pick garlic will forever be one of the great joys of my life. Nothing beats being in that ancient place.”

The challenges of setting up her business have been many, but Jennifer says that the food community is close-knit and helpful and have aided her in getting where she wants. It has been six years since she set up her business and though challenges come and go, she says the real hard work is maintaining the business, quality and integrity of a small artisan business: the right suppliers, products, nurturing relationships and finding that balance between feeding her passion and making some money too. Jennifer’s advice to new businesses such as hers is: never be afraid to ask for help.

A business such as hers, small, niche and solely handmade, is, in Jennifer’s words "a living, breathing thing that you have to nourish and take care of, it never stops". Jennifer’s greatest desire is to always maintain the quality and love for the business and the biscuit, and judging from the time, passion and commitment she puts into Pinnies And Poppyseeds, this isn’t unattainable.

A special thank you to Jennifer Hunter for her valuable time, and Gavin Neate for the introduction.

Pinnies And Poppyseeds, 26 St Mary's Street, Edinburgh,

EH1 1SU www.pinniesandpoppyseeds.com

Mom's Lemon Bars by Jennifer Hunter

My mother’s lemon bars remind me of home. I grew up with a beautiful old Meyer lemon tree in my backyard, and every summer we'd pick the huge yellow fruit and make this treat: shortbread-type base topped with a bright citrus curd and sprinkled generously with confectioner's sugar! (Just like me, this recipe has mixed measurements)

For the crust:

225 g unsalted butter

1/2 cup castor sugar

2 cups plain flour

Pinch of salt

Rub together until sand texture, press into bottom of 9x13 pan, bake for 15 min (or until slightly brown) at 180C

For the filling:

6 large eggs

3 cups castor sugar

1 cup of lemon juice (plus the zest of all those lemons)

1 cup plain flour

Mix up the eggy lemony custard filling and pour it over the hot base. Put it back in the oven for another 30 minutes. It should still have a slight wobble in the middle. Let it cool completely then dust with confectioners sugar. Slice it up and enjoy.