It took only a few words from U.S. President Barack Obama and the Moulin de Provence bakery in Ottawa's Byward Market is still selling cookies at the rate of 2,000 a day, somewhat more than the 200 or 250 cookies they used to sell each week.

"I understand you've got some Canadian cookies … in the shape of a maple leaf," the president said during his surprise walkabout in the market last Thursday.

The baker, Claude Bonnet, obliged with maple-leaf-shaped sugar cookies with red and white icing.

"I figured, I'd get some points from my daughters," Obama said.

Bonnet turned down Obama's offer to pay cash. "It's for your daughters. It's not for you," he said.

His employees have been working overtime ever since. By noon Friday they had sold 3,000 cookies.

Since then, orders have been coming in even from Europe and the United States.