Piping Plover Baking Co.

Erin Silvia of Amesbury, Mass., grew up learning how to bake alongside her grandmother, Martha. In the early 2000s, Silvia owned and operated Dough Raise Me Baking Co., a licensed home kitchen offering a variety of wholesale items. After being diagnosed with lupus a few years ago, Silvia started baking gluten-free and vegan baked goods for herself before later giving them to family and friends. That, she said, was how the Piping Plover Baking Co. (pipingploverbaking.com, and on Facebook and Instagram @pipingploverbaking) was born. Across a wide variety of flavors of cookies, as well as brownies, blondies, tea breads and shortbread bars, every one of the Piping Plover Baking Co.’s offerings is vegan, gluten-free, soy-free and GMO-free. Silvia works out of Kitchen Local, a shared commercial kitchen space in a renovated mill building in Amesbury, shipping her products all over the country and wholesaling to several local stores. You can find her goodies at the farm stand at Heron Pond Farm (290 Main Ave., S. Hampton), D Squared Java (155 Water St., Exeter) and Vermette’s Market (6 Pond St., Amesbury), as well as through the Three River Farmers Alliance, a Seacoast-based online network linking customers to locally sourced food. The Scene recently spoke with Silvia about her story and some of her favorite goodies.

How long has the Piping Plover Baking Co. been around?

It was two years this past January that I started, so January 2019.

What makes the Piping Plover Baking Co. unique?

That it’s just simple, honest baking. There is nothing decorative or ornate about anything that I do. It’s just simple and pure, and the whole reason I keep it that way is just to bring happiness to people, to put a smile on their faces. That’s all I really want. A lot of people that I bake for don’t always get to have treats because they can’t have dairy or they can’t have soy or they have some sort of allergy or sensitivity. … So it gives me great joy to give that to them.

What is your personal favorite item that you offer?

I’m all about dark chocolate, so any of my items that contain dark chocolate are going to be my favorites.

What is an item that everyone should try?

I would say the Catalina cookie, which has oats, dark chocolate and sea salt. It’s not overly sweet and just hits all of the flavor profiles perfectly. It almost makes you feel like you’re eating something that’s good for you.

What celebrity would you like to see trying something that you’ve baked?

Julia Child, because I grew up watching her on PBS. She was my entertainment as a kid.

What is an essential skill to running this type of business?

Determination … [and also] the ability and willingness to pivot. I never would have said that until this year, but this was definitely the year of pivoting.

What is your favorite thing about being on the Seacoast?

That you can put yourself on vacation for an afternoon. We are so lucky that we have all of this natural beauty here. We have the beach, or you can get in your car and drive up to the mountains.

— Matt Ingersoll

Featured photo: All photos courtesy of Piping Plover Baking Co.