Mary Lee's Desserts opened for business in 2004, and has grown steadily since then. Designed to be a small home-based business where I could be creative, do something that would make people happy, and still be at home for my family.

I started baking professionally at the Union Bay Café in Seattle, Washington under chef/owner Mark Manley, where I was one of his pantry/line cooks for 2 1/2 years. During that time, I was in charge of Mark's desserts, with everything made in-house. From that experience, I gained the confidence to open my own business and to create desserts that are made with a lot of love and truly delicious.

I have been lucky enough to have caught the eye of Food Writer, David Hagedorn of the Washington Post. David has been gracious enough to include me three times in the Food Section. And in December 2011, Food Editor Bonnie Benwick included two of my cookie recipes in the Post's Annual Cookie Issue. Since then, my M&M Bar Cookie recipe captured the #1 spot for the most viewed/downloaded of all of the Post's recipes for the entire year of 2012 ("Readers' Top Picks")!

And for the very first time, some of my desserts are available to you at Bards Alley Bookstore & Wine Café..........Vienna's very own independent bookstore! It's a wonderfully warm and inviting place to hang out for browsing. Hope you can check them out!