Almost a year ago, macaron making duo Suzanne and Jenny Williamson received a surprising phone call from the producers of The Great British Bake Off.

The sisters, who run their own patisserie Almondine in Aberdeen alongside their mother, had been scouted. The producers, who had fallen in love with their pretty pastel macarons and eye catching cakes, wanted them to audition for the shows' professional spin off, Creme de la Creme.

"It was quite an unexpected phone call," Suzanne laughs.

A show that delves far further into the world of patisserie than The Great British Bake Off's biscuits and scones, renowned pastry teams from top hotels and commercial kitchens from across the county sculpt trees with chocolate and create petals from pulled sugar to win esteemed competitions across the world.

Judges Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden scrutinise everything that appears before them and there aren't many kindly words of encouragement to be found a la Mary Berry.

For a small patisserie in the north-east of Scotland, the comparisons couldn't be more different.

What separated Almondine amongst the other competitors on the show, Suzanne explains, is that the team is largely self taught.

Sisters Jenny and Suzanne only began perfecting macarons in their kitchen with their mother Susan's help around five years ago.

They began selling them in a florist in Aberdeen, but soon bought part of the shop to build their own small patisserie empire. It quickly expanded into a large shop and cafe in the heart of the city, with its popular afternoon teas with a macaron twist compared by customers to those found at The Ritz.

Third team member Steph began working at their shop behind the counter 18 months ago, but her love of cakes impressed the siblings so much she was invited to join them in the kitchen to make the shop's patisserie after just a few months.

While younger sister Jenny has completed two courses at esteemed patisserie school Le Cordon Bleu since starting Almondine, their business' niche has remained that kitchen table project which just kept on growing as Aberdeen demanded more macarons.

But when it came to impressing on a national scale, spin-off programme Bake Off Creme de la Creme was just a pipe dream for the sisters.

Suzanne explains: "The two of us had watched the first series, we thought it was great and thought we would perhaps like to take part but we weren't really serious. And then we just got this phone call out of the blue from Love Productions asking us to apply for the programme.

"In a way we took that as a sign and thought this has happened for a reason and that we should just go for it."

From that initial shock of being scouted, the pair began to interview, audition and bake like they had never baked before. With Steph in the pastry kitchen just months before, it was a tough challenge to bring her onto their team, but one she took in her stride. Suzanne says that they couldn't have done it without her.

To showcase what they could create, the siblings carefully transported a delicate Charlotte cake and a box of macarons in all different flavours for the initial judges to try, maneuvering wobbling mousses and delicate meringue through airport security to make it to London in one piece.

Suzanne says: "We took down a Charlotte, it's a mousse with an almond sponge and spotty on the outside. We wanted to take something that represented us, that was quite colourful and fun and different and our windows are covered in macaron polka dots so we wanted to incorporate that into it as well."

But it is the macarons that Almondine had built their name upon, and while the selection they brought was varied, the sisters personal favourite played a starring role.

"We included one of our favourite ones, the pink peppercorn one, that's a favourite of ours and it's different. [The judges] were really pleased with the standard that we produced them."

But it would be a few weeks of silence before the sister act were finally invited to compete in November at a stately home in Surrey.

The challenges were tough and the judges even tougher to impress. With four other teams in the room, their first challenge of a delicate Fraiser cake, made with layers of sponge, crème mousseline and plenty of strawberries proved to be problematic for the trio.

The team went for a raspberry jelly insert to stand them apart from the others, which earned the team praise from the judges, but rushing through the tasks meant the they forgot to mark out each slice.

"I think we did pretty well to recover it to be honest," Suzanne says. "We had the right tools to mark out the slices the best we could.

"You have to keep your cool in situations like that or it will just get worse, you just have to get on with it and do the best you can."

Luckily, along with a raspberry and rose-flavoured layered dessert called a verrine, the team went through to the next round in fourth place to reinvent the classic pavlova. It was here the girls decided to showcase their macaron skills, transforming the dessert with a macaron disc, soft vanilla mousse and filled with a fruit compote.

"I thought the combination of flavours worked really well," says Suzanne.

"The judges commented on the macaron and said it was really well baked and to get a comment like that from professional pastry chefs was really nice.

"It's always good to get feedback whether positive or negative."

Ultimately though, the team weren't able to move up the ranks and left the competition before the next stage.

Renowned pastry chef and judge Benoit Blin offered words of encouragement as they left the competition that there 'is always more to learn'. Since then, the team have taken that message to heart and to improve their patisserie skills for customers since returning to Scotland.

They began to focus on chocolate work and now the counters are just as filled with chocolate bon bons splattered with colour alongside their macarons and the treats piled high on their sell-out afternoon teas are treated to more chocolatey flavours.

While other teams have returned to the competition this year to try their hand at becoming the best pastry team in the UK, Suzanne says it's a nice idea but one that may be on the backburner for now.

"It was almost a whole year, it consumed our thoughts and our lives - we've got a business to run and not just do lots of baking and practicing there so many other elements to look after, look after our staff and make sure everything's running smoothly," she says.

"We love our shop, we love our customers and we wouldn't want to do anything that would jeopardise that and take our focus away from what we love and what we started, really."

While an appearance on Creme de la Creme does not appear to be on the menu just now, their reinvented pavlova macaron and fraisier cake is.

Both Creme de la Creme creations are now sold behind the glass counter of their patisserie, with plenty of time to cut each slice perfectly.