Heather Yunger / Boston, MA

 

Don’t Crumble

When times are tough, the tough don’t crumble. That’s what Boston bakery owner Heather Yunger told herself and her staff in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. “We had a lot of people come out and support our small business, and every time I was feeling down, I was like, ‘Don’t crumble, don’t quit,’” says Heather.

These days, despite Top Shelf Cookies’ loyal customers, times are tough in other ways. Heather uses The Perfect Purée Lemon Zest in the bakery’s seasonal Lemon Drop D’Light cookies and Orange Zest in its Orange Line, named after a Boston subway route. The Perfect Purée’s commitment to maintaining quality and keeping prices steady despite economic uncertainty means Heather can keep ordering it. “Any time I don’t have to spend looking for stuff, that’s not a waste of my time,” she says.

She pays that forward by maintaining the price of single cookies in the bakery, which opened in 2021. “A lot of times, people who come in for one or two cookies are having a day, and I don’t want to make it so they can’t have that joy. It’s huge for me,” Heather says.

Pucker Up

Boston history and landmarks inspire Top Shelf’s cookies. “We have cookies for all four major teams, and the molasses cookie is called The Flood,” Heather says, after the 1919 disaster when a burst storage container deluged Boston’s North End neighborhood with 2.3 million gallons of molasses.

A seasonal cookie that’s only sold in July features Sam Adams’ Summer Ale and The Perfect Purée lemon and orange zests. It has a bright, citrusy pink peppercorn flavor. It’s part of Top Shelf’s partnership with Sam Adams’ Brewing the American Dream program to support food and beverage entrepreneurs. “Sam Adams is a big supporter of ours,” Heather says. “They sell our cookies in their brewery.”

As Heather tells it in a June blog post featuring Lemon Drop D’Light, what started as a simple idea for a bright, lemony cookie ran into a logistical challenge. “I remember thinking, ‘There is no way I can hand-zest lemons at scale,’” she writes. Her friend Brad, an old-school chef, recommended frozen lemon zest. “At the time, I thought I found a cheaper option. Then I found The Perfect Purée, and I love it. It’s such a better product,” Heather says.

Lemon Drop D’Light cookies are chewy and bright, with lemon zest in the dough and the lemon sugar (which Heather highly recommends in a cup of tea). They’re a summer hit at the bakery and farmers’ markets. “The lemon is the star in that cookie,” Heather says. “It’s bright, sweet, and refreshing — like sunshine in cookie form. It’s so well-loved that people will ask for it in December, but one of my bakers is seriously seasonal. She keeps me reined in.”

Orange Line emerged from Top Shelf’s Thursday test bake, a day when avid community members provide feedback on experimental recipes. “Some of them flop, and we never do them again. At first, Orange Line just didn’t kick, but once we switched over to The Perfect Purée and tried it again, I was like, ‘That’s it,’” Heather says.

Orange Zest gets heavy rotation during the holidays, like this year, when Heather plans on debuting a new chocolate orange cookie.

Wicked Good Cookies

Bostonians use the word ‘wicked’ to describe things that are anything but. So when Top Shelf made Boston Magazine’s list of Greater Boston’s Most Delicious Cookies, they were officially ‘wicked good.’ Lots of people already knew that.

Heather, a native New Englander and superstitious season ticket holder to the Boston Bruins, quit her corporate job to start baking professionally after the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011. Before every home game, she’d been treating fellow fans at The Fours, her favorite bar near TD Garden, with her Black & Gold cookies — dark chocolate and peanut butter chip for the Bruins’ colors. On June 15, the night of Game 7, she brought seven dozen cookies. “It had taken on a life of its own, and the night the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, I said, “I hate my job. What if I quit my job? What if I just baked cookies for a living?”

Nearly 15 years later, Top Shelf is still baking for restaurants and retailers and filling custom orders. The storefront has become a neighborhood destination. “It’s our kitchen with an open door,” Heather says. “If we just changed someone’s day, we’ve had a better day.”

User Tip: Sweet Life 

Heather’s not the first to say a little Perfect Purée goes a long way. Especially now, when food costs are unpredictable, she suggests small-batch recipe development. “With the zest, a little goes a long way, so it’s worth the cost,” she says. Creativity keeps Heather energized. So does making people’s lives a little sweeter. When a friend told her recently she was quitting her food business, “I asked her why and she was stark [and said], ‘There are easier ways to make money,’” Heather recalls. “There are, but what I do I really like because I get to bring people joy every day.”