I'm Mary Lee Montfort, and 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 baking Mark's desserts, with everything made in-house. From that experience, I gained the confidence to open my own business (9 years later and 3,000 miles away!).
Mary Lee's Desserts opened in July 2004 as a very small home-based, fully licensed baking business in Vienna, Virginia. My little dessert business allowed me to be creative, to do something that made people happy, and to still be at home for my family.
As I added more and more clients, my holiday baking regularly exceeded 1,000 cookies, and my Cupcake Carousel events had me making over 250 at a time. My layer cakes harkened back to a time when a cake really tasted homemade, and there were families who had me make their special birthday cakes each and every year. I just loved that!