The Fabulous Baker Boy
MacLeod on Lewis, contemplating his next Clootie Dumpling: photography by Susie Lowe
He went from designing football shirts to pursue his dream of curating the local recipes his aunt taught him growing up on the Isle of Lewis. Oh, and he once performed in the Eurovision Song Contest — for Iceland. Tom Pattinson finds that the charming Coinneach MacLeod, aka The Hebridean Baker, didn’t have to fake it to make it in dough business
Coinneach MacLeod spends half the year living off grid in Scotland with his partner Peter in a place with no electricity or running water. He’s a (hashtag) social media sensation — we’ll come back to that in a bit — but says the idyllic Insta-ready life portrayed on his posts aren’t fabricated, it’s just him documenting his everyday life.
“We didn’t have to think, how do we stage this kind of thing? Because the only way to get to our cabin is by canoe. You have to chop the wood to get the fire going because that's your only heat source. So yes, it makes amazing social media content, but it's just our life.”
His home is in a remote part of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, he can’t say where exactly or the place would be overrun with fans.
“It’s rustic, but for us, it’s luxury,” he explains. “We’ve got our vegetable crops there, we’ve got our orchard, we’ve got creels, so we get the boat, head out, get some lobsters, that’s our dinner. I would love to say I just sit there reading books and wistfully looking out the window but you’re always working while you’re there.”
To be fair, MacLeod does an exceptionally good line in looking windswept and rugged whilst staring wistfully at brooding highland vistas. Possibly with a small dog playing at his feet. Just look at the pictures on this page for proof.
Today, MacLeod — known to his swelling legion of fans as the Hebridean Baker — arrives at the private members club in London hot on the coattails of another artfully bearded famous man. Last night, David Beckham and his family were hosting a party here for the launch of his Netflix documentary series. Now it’s the handsome Hebridean who causes ripple of appreciation as he swooshes into the room in his kilt through the idly assembled glitterati, models and art dealers. The McNetflix series might not be that far off.
MacLeod has presence. And not just on social media, where he has 250,000 followers on TikTok and over 100,000 on Instagram. He is 48, six-foot-three, bushily bearded, with modelish good looks. He is wearing hiking boots, a hand-knitted Arran sweater and a Harris tweed kilt — complete with sporran. The full Scottish ensemble couldn’t clash more with the fashion crowd stuffed into this trendy lounge. He looks great.
‘Spending time with him conjures a portal to another era, where the sweaty commute on an underground train is replaced by a slow, lingering row across chilly waters’
He has just come straight from the studios where he has been happily doing the morning TV rounds to talk about his new cook-book and his rise to social media fame.
It was a no-brainer to call himself The Hebridean Baker. MacLeod lives in the Outer Hebrides and he bakes, a passion he inherited from his 95-year-old Aunt Bellag. She gave him her recipe for a Clootie Dumpling – a traditional steamed pudding made with dried fruits — and the rest is wholesome culinary history. “She’s an absolute superhero. I think that’s the secret. The secret to a long life is Hebridean cakes…and a few drams.”
It’s certainly an appealingly simple recipe for good living in torrid times. MacLeod embodies it. He’s soothing company, with his soft burr of a voice, a beaming highland boy next door appeal and a backdrop for his work that provides the perfect picture-book setting.
Spending time with him conjures a portal to another era, where the sweaty commute on an underground train is replaced by a slow, lingering row across chilly waters. Fast food and consumerism have been replaced with home-grown veg and hand-knitted woollens. Box-set and a bag of popcorn? How about a tot or two of the good stuff on the sheepskin rug in front of a crackling fire in your cosy bothy.
One of the main things he loves about the Hebrides is that they are ‘exotic’ and still out of reach for many travellers. “The Inner Hebrides, the whisky islands, certainly Islay and Skye, they are very well-known and people will visit those places for many reasons. They’re more accessible. But we’ve always been seen as just that bit too far away,” he says, with some relish.
The clear turquoise sea at Seilebost on the isle of Harris
He’s not wrong. This magnificent archipelago of islands — Lewis, Harris, Uist, Barra, Benbecula and more besides — are renowned for their stunning white shell beaches and flower cover machair. But to get to this beautiful sanctuary requires a five-hour ferry from Oban on the mainland to the southern town of Barra, or a three-and-a-half-hour ferry from the northern port town of Ullapool to the capital, Stornoway. You could hop on a plane from the mainland, but that’s cheating. MacLeod reckons outsiders see his home as a ‘destination’ – like Tibet or Machu Picchu – somewhere to be ticked off by the intrepid global explorer. Wanderlust travel magazine agrees, naming the Outer Hebrides as one of the top 100 Greatest Travel Experiences in the world – the only area in Britain to make the list.
‘“I used to design the Scottish National Football Team’s kit along with Adidas,” he shrugs. MacLeod started with Celtic, the team he supports, working with overseas partners when Japanese midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura played for the Scottish club’
Out of reach they may be, but MacLeod has put the islands on the map with his TikTok tribe who avidly tune in to see him fishing, hiking and traipsing across the isles with his West Highland Terrier, Seòras, and of course baking various traditional dishes along the way.
I’m struck by the paradox that people desperate to turn off and tune out are swiping through social media in an attempt to unplug from the constantly ‘on’ world of modern day living. But it’s the escapist fantasy that the modern urban dweller, weeks from burnout collapse, is tuning in for. The dream of quitting the thankless job, selling the pokey two-bed flat and running away from the technological saturation of modern life.
King of the aisles: MacLeod’s baking prowess has put him and his home on the map; photograph by Susie Lowe
I ask him what he did before his rise to TikTok fame, imagining a young MacLeod eager to follow in his father’s footsteps as a fisherman out on the choppy Atlantic Ocean. “I actually went out when all my three older brothers became fishermen. When you’re 12, that’s your kind of passage – you go out on the boat. After one day I was like, I don’t want it. That's it. I'm out.”
His mother was a weaver of Harris Tweed. Maybe he fancied doing that?
Another way too conventional career option, it turns out. Although he clearly developed a keen eye for fashion from an early age.
“I used to design the Scottish National Football Team’s kit along with Adidas,” he shrugs. MacLeod started with Celtic, the team he supports, working with overseas partners from Japan, when Japanese midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura played for the Scottish club. “He had just signed. Fantastic player. One of the best I ever saw.” MacLeod joined the Scottish FA “working on the branding and design side as well as the marketing”, eventually doing the full rebrand of the national team. Since then, he has helped rebrand the Mexican Football Federation, the Indian team, the Lithuanian team, and for the last 13 years has worked at UEFA in a development role in Africa.
VIDEO: THE LAST SIPPER — Watch Coinneach MacLeod talk about his life in whisky
“What’s been really interesting through this journey as the Hebridean Baker is going to work in Africa for two weeks and coming back to be the baker, then heading to Mozambique or somewhere, and then back to the islands again,” he says.
The stories — and surprises — keep coming. He tells me about one of his more raucous nights after he came fourth in the Eurovision Song Contest where he was a backing singer for eccentric Icelandic musician Daði Freyr. “I heard he was looking for backing singers so I just contacted him.” Whisky may have been taken.
MacLeod started working at Eurovision in the 90s when he was in Russia. “They sent me as part of the Russian delegation to cover the first time Russia ever entered Eurovision so I just started to get to know folk, and then I represented Scotland at the Eurovision Choir Song Contest in Sweden.” Easy!
‘He tells me about one of his more raucous nights after he performed in the Eurovision Song Contest where he was a backing singer for eccentric Icelandic musician Daði Freyr’
I ask him how he became a social influencer.
“I’d done some work with the Mexican Football Federation to launch their TikTok, and I looked up and was like, “Yeah, I get it. Yeah, that works,” he says, and yet again he was off in a flash. Now over 28 million people watch his videos. And, as well as his own TV show on BBC Alba, the Gaelic channel in Scotland that he hosts with his partner, he has just released his third cookbook, firmly baking him in as the best-selling Scottish food author.
The new book, The Hebridean Baker at Home, is about “meeting people in their homes and finding out their stories, their kitchen, or their favourite cocktail. All my books, but this one in particular, should feel like it’s a love story to the Hebrides that happens to have recipes in it,” he says.
The book is filled with comforting cakes and bakes from MacLeod’s Double Dram Cake to Marmalade Shortbread, Fern Cake to Ecclefechan Tarts, alongside delicious, hearty savoury dishes, including Leek Bread & Butter Pudding and Salmon Wellington. It’s cosy, comfort food, done Western Isles style.
The way he talks about the Hebrides, its people, its natural bounty and its sheer awe-inspiring nature, makes me want to visit. Perhaps not quite up sticks and live off grid for all eternity, but certainly take a long trip there and soak it all in.
“It wasn’t intentional to become this kind of brand that would be the best-selling cookbook author in Scotland you know,” he tells me. “I was listening to my aunt tell me these old stories and sharing traditional recipes and I was like… OK… I want to make sure this is kept for the people on the island.”
MacLeod’s Expresso Martini
His genuineness is his biggest gift. There is not even a sprinkling of contrived purpose about his newfound fame. He says it has taken him aback, how he has become a best-selling author, TV host and TikTok star in three short years. And I believe him.
We talk about social media, how it can be toxic and divisive but also how it can create communities – like the one the Hebridean Baker has cultivated. “The thing is, it's just all about being authentic,” he tells me, supping his 10-year-old Hebridean Jura, in his kilt and hand- knitted woollen jumper. Yes, it is Mr MacLeod. Yes, it is.
Bite-sized baker — the Barley Q&A
Favourite bar?
There is a pub in Glasgow called the Park Bar where a lot of Hebrideans go to drink. I used to work in it, and I’ve never felt more of a celebrity as I did as a 19-year-old pouring pints in the Park Bar.
Classic Hebridean bake?
It’s the Clootie dumpling or ‘Duff’ as we say in Gaelic. It’s a boiled fruitcake with a difference, it’s got a skin, because you flour the muslin before you put it in to twine and boil it. For this book, I’ve crossed a banana loaf with a Clootie dumpling and I have to say it’s spectacular.
Everyday dram?
Probably a Jura 10-year-old. It’s got wee hint of peat in it, but not too much. Lovely and smooth.
Dream whisky destination?
The new Hebridean whisky trail. It takes you from the Isle of Harris distillery, down through Skye, to Raasay, all the way down the west coast of Scotland to Jura. I can imagine that would be a dream trip.
Who would you invite to your fantasy whisky party?
I would have to start with Lulu because I think she would definitely bring the music to the ceilidh. Then I’d invite the amazing author Douglas Stewart who wrote Shuggie Bain and won the Booker Prize. We had a great chat once in New York, walking down Fifth Avenue with Douglas talking about Scotland. And to have a wee bit of a political chat I’d ask my hero Nicola Sturgeon along. That would make a great gathering.
The Hebridean Baker at Home (Black & White Publishing) is out now.
Follow Coinneach’s adventures on Instagram @hebrideanbaker
