Since he was old enough to stand, Finlay Macdonald has been in the kitchen baking with his granny.
Climbing up on a stool to help her prepare scones for his family, food has always been a source of happy memories.
‘Both of my grannies were brilliant cooks and they’d take me into the kitchen and teach me when I was wee.
‘We’d make dinners and cakes and serve them up to the family to enjoy around the table, so from a really young age I learned to associate food with happy times spent with family – something that’s stayed with me into adulthood.
‘I particularly remember my granny teaching me how to make scones when I was about very young and how much I loved it, so I suppose my love of baking started then.’
It was a taste of things to come and the start of a passion for food which saw him become one of Scotland’s youngest chocolatiers in 2016.
At high school he started baking bread to sell to his teachers and classmates, and after a stint making chocolates during work experience in a pastry kitchen, he decided baking was for him, and turned down his spot at university to give his sweet treats a proper go.
Now, aged 25, he runs his own artisan business called Chocolates of Glenshiel and is making 32,000 chocolates a month for hungry customers in Skye.
‘I’ve always gotten a real thrill from business. In high school, I started my own bread business,’ Finlay says.
‘I’d spend my evenings baking batches of bread and take them into school to sell to my teachers and classmates for a couple of pounds.
‘I wasn’t so much in it for the money as I was for the enjoyment of baking and sharing it with others.’
‘I’d spent my pocket money on some moulds and started watching a load of YouTube videos about chocolatiering,’ he said.
‘I started with the basics and slowly but surely built up my skills.
‘When I left school, there weren’t many jobs available in the local area and I’d been offered a place at Reading University.
‘But I’d totally fallen in love with my home in Glenshiel and I really didn’t want to leave.
He started in his parents’ kitchen, and after outgrowing that, moved to a cabin in the garden, before snapping up an old petrol station in Glenshiel to convert.
From his heather honey and raspberry flavour, and Scottish elderflower gin, to the more wacky Haggis Spice bar, the Highlands are at the heart of everything Finlay does
‘Glenshiel and the Highlands in general inspire our chocolates massively,’ he said.
‘Both me and my team find new flavours and ingredients from our experiences living in Glenshiel and bring them back to the kitchen to see how we can make them chocolatey and even more delicious.
‘Great Scottish ingredients are at the very heart of our chocolates.
‘Our sea salt comes from the Isle of Skye; our raspberries from Blairgowrie; our coffee from Inverness.
‘When it comes to ingredients, we’re uncompromising. Everything must come from Scotland and must be the best of the best.
‘We often come across elderflowers when walking the dog in a local village, Glenelg.
‘It smells so sweet and floral, we just had to bring it back to the kitchen and put it in some of our Scottish gin chocolates.’
The product which raises the most eyebrows is his Haggis Spice bar.
‘It’s understandable as the image conjured up by the word ‘haggis’ isn’t necessarily one which people would naturally associate with chocolate,’ Finlay says.
‘But it’s made from very high quality dark chocolate, which has an almost fruity flavour profile on its own.
‘We then combine it with the spices that haggis is flavoured with – nutmeg, mace, coriander seed, black pepper and a sprinkle of Isle of Skye sea salt. If you have the courage to taste it, you won’t regret it. It’s delicious.
‘Our most popular chocolate is probably our heather honey and raspberry one.
‘The raspberry offers a tart “zingyness” while the heather honey brings an intense warmth and sweetness. The two paired together are just gorgeous.
‘We encase them in white chocolate, which brings a beautiful creaminess to the bite of the raspberries. It always goes down a treat.’
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