The Exploding Bakery
Photography by Sam A Harris
Interview by Ariana Ruth
Devon based The Exploding Bakery launch national letterbox brownie gifting and subscription service.
South West based bakery The Exploding Bakery deliver their ethical bakes across the UK with the launch of their new nationwide Letterbox Brownies. Their tasty new gifting and subscription service delivers freshly made, delicious brownies to the letterboxes of those you love and also those who just love themselves.
As part of the founder’s quest to counter pointless greed, Tom Oxford and Oliver Coysh’s new online brownie service ‘Scoff the Rich’ will help shine a light on our unhealthy obsession with having our cake and eating it.
Where did your passion for baking first come from?
I originally started baking after my Mum came back from a long trip to Australia in 2002, waxing lyrical about the amazing food scene over there and clutching a copy of Bill Granger’s excellent Sydney Food, and a few copies of Woman’s Weekly Australia. The recipes in these books were fresh and exciting, a real change from the usual WI sponges and Kipling delights we were used to over here. I started to emulate these, experimenting and making a lot of mess and a lot of mistakes, so I suppose I have to credit my Mum with my love for baking, her wanderlust and love of food was always a huge part of family life for us. Shortly after her return she set up an Australian style juice bar serving up all she’d learned and I had the chance to do some baking for the juice bar and took things from there.
Who are some of your influences when it comes to recipes, flavour combinations and ideas?
Well, I guess I have to say Bill Granger now. I also had a bit of an obsession with the Rose Bakery book - Breakfast, Lunch & Tea, I still have that book, although it’s caked in food and a little fragile now. Rose Carrarini seemed to be able to effortlessly make things look simple yet classy, and always like you wanted to eat them as quickly as possible, even the photography had this kind of unfussy style that really appealed to me. We’ve got a slight alternative edge to our goods and to our ethics which I think comes from both Oli and I growing up with hippy influences. I spent my early days hanging out where my mum worked as a Homeopath in Covent Garden and we’d always eat at Food for Thought in Seven Dials. The wholesome side of that has always stuck with me along with a nostalgic feel for earthenware, wooden plates and Waldorf salads. The real treats were the date or apricot slices though, never made with added sugar, almost a bit savoury but utterly delicious and I guess this plays into our philosophies and products as we try to use less sugar and more of the ingredient that brings the flavour, where we can. Margot Boyce-White who started Food for Thought and the subsequent family that carried on those values are real food heroes who created something great which that lasted from 1971 to 2015 and it’s such a shame they got pushed out by greedy landlords. We’ve been going for almost 10 years now and it feels like we’re only just starting to see the value in doing something well and to take pride and joy in what you do rather than worry that you’r not getting somewhere fast enough.
At Table, we’re always interested in where the ingredients are from. Are there any makers or growers that you’re particularly excited to be working with?
One of our big things has always been finding great suppliers and then building our relationships with them over time, we work with amazing people locally like our egg supplier who are just five miles down the road, only use Cornish Butter form Trewithen Dairy, Pip & Nut peanut butter and so many more amazing suppliers, but the big one in relation to the Letterbox Brownies is our chocolate supplier, Casa Luker. When we decided to work with them they invited us to visit them and see that they are all about, so it was a no brainer to head to Colombia for a jungle adventure. We knew they made high grade single origin chocolate but didn’t quite realise the extent to which they are committed to their ethics and to raising the standard of cocoa farming and staff welfare in South America. They build schools, fund villages to help grow sustainable business for the local community and are also the oldest B Corp in the world. They also have an incredible cocoa education centre in the mountains where other farmers and producers can come and learn for free about best practice for permaculture and farming standards in order to raise the level of chocolate production across the whole country and beyond. A truly good company and one we are proud to work with.
Tell us a bit about your new Letterbox Brownie service.
The idea was initially born out of the frustration of a missed delivery and wanting to know that a gift would arrive without creating a problem for the recipient, so they aren’t having to chase down their order. We wanted to create something beautiful that was also convenient and would survive the online covid boom to be a treat you want to keep sending and receiving, so we delved into the roller coaster ride of online deliveries, which was a whole new world of learning for us. You almost have to start thinking more like a tech company than we’ve been used to, the challenge was to bring together the vibe and culture we’ve built up in our cafe and bakery over the years, then package it up to go through your letterbox. We went all out and created 12 new recipes, all of them gluten free and half of them vegan as well, we had a lot of fun doing it and feel like we’ve unlocked a new door in our sweet and sticky journey, where we’re excited to keep trying new things.
How do you think that The Exploding Bakery differs from other bakeries out there?
A lot of what we feel makes us different isn’t only in the things we make, or the way we make them. Baking is a science and you have to get it right, otherwise there’s no cake or bread, so all good bakeries get the science right. Although the suppliers and ingredients we use are special, we feel like our ethics and drive to be a force for good set us apart. The fact that we're always looking for better ways to be a better company, whether that's paying a fairer price to suppliers, improving our methods, working with charities to help where we can or just making the work environment a fun place to be and remembering that cake is fun and money is not the end goal. We believe that those are the things that set us apart and allow us to work harder towards something other than just traditional success. We want to use our profits to support good causes, that’s why we’re currently working with Food Cycle, who are a great charity focused on reducing food waste and providing meals to people in need. We’re also part of 1% for the planet which is a great foundation set up by the founders of Patagonia and as a company it's a no brainer to be a part if you care for the planet. Looking back at this I can see how it could all come across a bit worthy, but it really is just a way for us to inject more meaning and fun into what we do and make sure we all come to work with a spring in our step and a common goal to make a difference, and some banging cakes.
COVID-19 has undoubtedly had a major impact on the food & hospitality industry. What have been some of the changes that you’ve had to make to the business?
When the news first hit, we definitely didn’t react and adapt as quickly as some other businesses. Instead we sort of consolidated and regrouped a bit, I think mainly because, until then, our main focus and income had been through supplying other cafes and similar businesses via wholesale, but that all died off in the first lockdown so we needed a bit of time to think. As we crept out of it we did start to make big changes though. Firstly we decided to get rid of all the admin and bureaucracy that had crept up on us, it had really infiltrated all areas of the business and we were all spending more time filling in paperwork and worrying about getting that right than we were about the actual cakes and whether they could be better, or how we could improve our methods and be creative. We wanted to bring back a bit of fun, and only add back the admin we needed, when we needed it. A Cake first approach has helped us improve our quality and focus on the right things. The biggest change for us though has been our Letterbox Brownies and Coffee service. We’d been wanting to do a retail product for a while and COVID certainly sped that up and gave the kick up the arse we needed, we knew you could buy cake online already, so we decided to look outside what was available and take out time to create something special. It’s been a lot more work than we realised but we have learnt so much new stuff along the way and are still learning and improving, it’s hard but it’s given us a new lease of life and an avenue so be creative where we didn’t even know we could be.
Once we’re all allowed to travel again what’s a bakery that you’ve both always wanted to travel to? We’ve got to have something to dream about, right?
Before COVID I was planning a trip to America, as I haven’t ever made it there. The idea was to try and visit as many bakeries, speciality coffee shops and other exciting eateries as possible. They have some great bakeries doing some really interesting things so it would be an amazing learning experience to visit some of the lesser known ones along with some more famous ones, like Tartine, which is a bit of a pilgrimage for a lot of bakers really. Some of them might even let me work a day or two along the way to at least bend their ear over a coffee or beer.
Do you have any exciting upcoming projects that you’re working on at the moment?
We’re always full of ideas and lots of waffle, but our problem has usually been a lack of focus. We think of all sorts of crazy things then realise we haven’t even finished the last one yet. Since covid, we have tried to be more focused and concentrate on doing one thing well and really plan the next idea and the reasons behind it from the ground up. Having said that, we’re thinking about an online bakery school to go alongside our Letterbox brownies, a new ‘cake lab’ in our cafe so we can let loose and get creative on new ideas in an interactive public space and another top secret project only possible post covid, watch this space.
Most importantly, how can we get our hands on some of your delicious brownies?
The best way to get hold of some of our brownies is to receive them as a gift, the packaging is really bright and fun to unwrap, so if you want to cheer someone up, head over to our website and check out the goods. Don’t forget to add a message as well, we even have some biodegradable balloons and beeswax candles if you really want to get the party started.
Visit explodingbakery.com
