About Sploffin
I learned to bake at my gran's side.
The story behind the bakes: generational recipes, passed through the years, and why the batches stay small.
From her kitchen to mine
My gran catered weddings and christenings, the occasions where the cake is not allowed to be ordinary. From about twelve I was beside her in the kitchen, and by fifteen I was taking orders of my own. Her recipes were never written down properly: a handful of this, butter until it looks right, taste and adjust. I have spent years pinning them down so they come out perfectly every single time.
Sploffin is those recipes, baked in small batches with all-natural ingredients from my home kitchen in Peterborough.
(one oven, four hands, for now)
The two of us
A husband-and-wife bakery
Sploffin is the two of us. I run the kitchen: the recipes, the baking, the decorating, and every order that leaves it. My husband runs the other side of it, the marketing and getting Sploffin in front of the people who would like it.
Food is in his family as well. His dad trained as a chef and had him helping in the kitchen from when he was small, so he grew up knowing how a proper kitchen runs.
(two families' worth of cooking, one small kitchen)
In their name
We lost my mum during covid, and his dad six months after her. My dad and my gran are gone as well.
Sploffin is in their name as much as ours. The recipes I bake from came down through them, and his dad's kitchen is where my husband grew up. Building something good out of all that is how we keep the four of them close.
What's a sploffin?
A splodge crossed with a muffin. Gran's kind of word.
Where the recipes come from
A small-batch bakery in Peterborough, built on catering recipes
Sploffin is a small-batch bakery in Peterborough that bakes generational recipes passed through the years: the sponges, buns and pies that fed weddings and christenings long before I had a kitchen of my own, made with all-natural ingredients in small batches.
Catering recipes are a different animal from cookbook recipes. They were built to survive a hundred guests and a hot marquee, and they lived in my gran's hands rather than on paper. She measured by feel and corrected by taste. Turning that into something dependable took years of baking the same sponge over and over, weighing what she did by instinct, and writing down what actually mattered. I trust what's left completely. The fiftieth bake comes out like the fifth.
How I bake
Four promises from an all-natural bakery
Sploffin is an all-natural bakery in Peterborough: real butter, real vanilla, and nothing out of a packet.
All-natural always
Real butter, real vanilla, real fruit. If I wouldn't serve it at my own table, it doesn't leave the kitchen.
Baked to order
Nothing sits on a shelf hoping. The batch is ordered before it's baked, and baked just for you, timed so it arrives at its best.
One batch at a time
One small pop-up at a time, and when it's spoken for, it's gone. Small batches are how the quality stays honest.
Local first
Baked in Peterborough, for Peterborough. Free collection, cake delivery priced in your quote, and shop orders posted by Royal Mail or DPD.
Reserved first, baked once, gone
Why a small-batch bakery bakes in batches
Sploffin sells its everyday bakes through the pop-ups: you order and pay online, I bake just for the order list, and you collect from the pop-up spot in Peterborough. Most of the batch is ordered before the oven goes on, with a few extras for whoever turns up on the day, so almost nothing is baked on a guess and nothing gets thrown away.
The pop-ups are also how the quality holds. A big bakery needs stabilisers and long shelf lives; a single oven-load doesn't. I weigh every ingredient myself, taste from every tray, and pull anything that isn't right. A pop-up is small because that's how much one person can bake properly.
Collection is free, celebration cake delivery is priced in your quote, and the letterbox gifts and cupcake boxes post to your door by Royal Mail or DPD.
(the oven is only so big)
Thank you for being here at the start of it.
- the baker