Delco Profile: Arianne Kline of Wee Marie’s Shortbread Carries on a Family Tradition With Her Baking Business

In the 1980s, when Arianne Kline was growing up in Glen Mills, PA, her mom started a small cottage business selling their family’s beloved Scottish shortbread to friends and neighbors around the holidays. The recipe, which was passed down from Arianne’s Scottish grandmother, was a family secret of sorts (there is no written record of it), and everyone who tried the butter biscuits loved them.

Decades later, when Arianne’s mom “retired” from this business, Arianne decided to take it over. For 15 years, as the winter holidays rolled around every year, she’d start baking up a storm, selling boxes upon boxes of shortbread to her friends and her mom’s community of customers. And every year without fail, many of these friends would ask why she didn’t make and sell them other times of the year. 

“I’d say, ‘No, the holidays are enough,’ but after the tenth person said it to me this year, I thought maybe I should just give it a try,” Kline remembers. “And now here I am!”

In January of 2023, Kline founded Wee Marie’s Shortbread, named after her mom, who was the youngest of four daughters, and affectionately known as “Wee Marie.” With the help of her husband, Kline set up Instagram and Facebook accounts, and started a Shopify website. Word began to spread among her network that her famous shortbreads were now available year-round and her first sales started coming in.

What made the business feel real, though, was when she started getting orders from strangers.

“My whole life we just sold the shortbreads to people we knew, so as soon as I started to get orders from people I didn’t know, that was so exciting!” Kline says.

In the short time since, the business has grown faster than she expected, including a handful of wholesale accounts, including House Cup Coffee Roasters and Colonial Market in Havertown, and Next Stop Coffee in Ardmore. Kline also sells plenty of shortbread through her website, and makes home deliveries within a few miles of her home in Havertown. Currently, she bakes one day a week in the kitchen at Sweets on Darby in Havertown, but expects that soon, she may have to bump it up to two days. 

For the uninitiated, Scottish shortbread is a flaky, light butter cookie, less sweet than a sugar cookie, and less dense and hard than other types of shortbread. 

“It’s mostly butter, with just a little sugar — that’s what makes it melt in your mouth,” Kline says.

For years, her family only made traditional plain butter shortbreads, but she’s since expanded to chocolate chip shortbread, which has been a huge hit with customers, as well as a fall seasonal, salted chocolate caramel. She’s also created a gluten-free version, and will occasionally make seasonal or customized versions using colorful sprinkles, like green for St. Patrick’s Day or Eagles games.

In the Wee Marie’s online shop, there are multiple sizes and packaging options, as well, including personalized gift baggies, and one-dozen and three-dozen boxes. For gifts, there are a few kinds of wrapping paper to choose from (her family always used the red plaid paper at Christmas time), as well as pink gift boxes for all the Ted Lasso fans out there.

Looking into her second year in business, Kline says she’s hopeful to see more growth for Wee Marie’s Shortbreads, including securing a few more wholesale accounts.

“I would like to get into a couple more coffee shops or vendors, maybe like 3 or 4 more, that would be perfect,” she says. “I could still manage that all on my own, and if it grows past that, I’ll need to get some help!”

For more info on Wee Marie’s shortbread, or to place an order, head to its online shop!

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Want to know more about everything Delco? We’re more than just your source for good eats — we’re your source for where to stay, what to do and more in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. We’re Visit Delco, PA, and we’ve got you covered from Philly to the Brandywine. Find us at 1501 N. Providence Rd., Media, PA, 19063; (610) 565-3679 or online.

— Emily Kovach

All photos courtesy of Wee Marie’s Shortbread