“My grandma Turner’s shortbread recipe is as much a part of Christmas as the tree,” declares Susan Parr, an area resident with deep family roots. Her great-grandfather built his first home on Bayview – originally #5, now known as 1395 – in 1920. And while she moved often when growing up because of her dad’s job, she says Leaside was always “home base…. we’d visit my grandparents regularly; most Christmases we spent with them on McRae.”
Like many Torontonians more than a century ago, Susan’s ancestors came from the UK. They brought their traditions with them, which at Christmastime included baking sweet treats, like shortbread. Originally living on Merton and Balliol, they crossed Bayview once Leaside became more established. “My great-grandparents were active parishioners at St. Cuthbert’s, so it made sense to build their house right next to the vicarage lived in by Canon Lamb and his wife Estella, née Lea. Both houses still stand today.”
Susan adds that her grandparents were very invested in Leaside. Her grandfather served on the Board of Education. He worked at Canada Wire and Cable for a while and even lived in one of the semis on Rumsey built by the company for employees. “It’s where my mom was born.” A few decades later, “after my parents got married, their first home was a second floor flat at the Talbot Apartments where their first child was born: me.”
She adds that “my memories of Christmas in Leaside are happy and strong.” Susan remembers watching her grandmother prepare the shortbread dough and refrigerating it overnight. She also remembers the well-worn cookie cutters, shaped like Christmas trees, stockings and reindeer. “There are only three ingredients to the recipe: butter, flour and brown sugar.” The preparing and chilling of the mixture meant it was a process, but it was always a good time for family to come together around the kitchen table, especially for her mom, grandma and two younger sisters. She also recalls her grandmother adding maraschino cherries and red and green sugar sprinkles as decorations on the cookies when fresh out of the oven. Susan’s are done to perfection and not too sweet but with a nice soft texture.
Not only is Susan keeping her grandmother’s shortbread recipe alive, but like her grandparents she is continuing their spirit of community activism. Since retiring as a civil servant in the Ontario government, mostly with the Ministry of Community and Social Services and with a focus on children’s wellbeing, she has been active with the Leaside Historical Preservation Society as one of the founding members.
While family have come to Susan to copy out the recipe – Susan is the keeper of ancestral heirlooms and has all her grandma’s handwritten recipe cards – the recipe has also travelled.
“I remember one Christmas we were living in Owen Sound; my grandparents came to spend it with us. Winnie prepared the mixture in a big bowl with her favourite wooden spoon, and they tasted almost as good as the ones that came out of her oven in Leaside. For some reason the old enamel stove on legs with the oven beside the cooktop that they owned forever turned out the best meals.”
Another time the recipe travelled to Hawaii when she and her husband visited his brother, and small children. “I thought it would be fun to bake with the kids. Shortbread holds it shape when baked but for the first time the cookies came out of the oven flat as pancakes – the heat? Not sure, but they still tasted great!
“Just as my grandma baked shortbread knowing how happy it made us kids, I now prepare them with and for nieces and nephews. They bring Christmas joy, especially to the little people.”
Susan’s cherished shortbread recipe
