Pancella Brings Sweethampton Cakery to the South Fork

You will know when Jamie Pancella is in the kitchen baking when you hear Pink Floyd playing and you can smell something sweet.

She founded her bakery, SweetHampton Cakery, in 2023. Whether she is in her kitchen at home in East Hampton or a commercial space nearby, it’s hard to find her without her classic rock playlist and her KitchenAid mixer. The mixer has been her go-to since she graduated culinary school and she couldn’t imagine baking without it.

“I’ll never replace it and use it until it breaks down,” she said.

She’d rather the KitchenAid keep her company than anyone else. “I like my space in the kitchen,” Pancella said. Visitors in her kitchen often tease her perfectionist tendencies, but she likes her cooking space the way she wants it. And to be honest, she would rather be left alone. Her boyfriend, East Hampton-based artist Richard Mothes, paints in a room adjacent to her while she is making culinary creations nearby.

Pancella, originally a Lindenhurst native, has been baking for her friends for as long as she can remember.

Flavors don’t faze her. Pancella said she doesn’t have a favorite flavor and loves playing around with sweet and savory bites. She’s a true New Yorker with her Everything Buns, an elevated take on a bagel and cream cheese, being a fan favorite. This delicious bun has a swirl of cream cheese filling and is best served warm and gooey.

Pancella loves the local flavors available and often finds fresh produce like berries or other fruit she can whip into her creations at local farms. Her savory scone incorporates flavors like chives and spinach, which she always tries to source from Share the Harvest Farm in East Hampton. She hopes that she will be able to sell her pastries at the farm this summer.

“I have taken a little bit of every place I have worked and incorporated it into my business,” Pancella says.

While attending SUNY Albany for business, she was baking for friends. This passion project soon started to turn into something more when she decided to “take it full time,” she said. Pancella left college and headed to pastry school at The Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan.

“Baking for my friends and seeing their reactions and just seeing how happy food can make people and how it brings everyone together, it was a bunch of little moments,” she says describing her journey from college to culinary school.

After graduating from culinary school in 2016, Pancella earned an internship at Mah-Ze-Dahr Bakery in the West Village in New York City. She was with them through the opening of their first brick-and-mortar location. After three years at Mah-Ze-Dahr and rising through the ranks to sous chef, she was ready to be back on Long Island.

She joined Baked by the Ocean in 2018 and spent two years baking in Long Beach. She moved out to the East End at the start of the pandemic. Originally in East Hampton, she joined Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett and began baking there. But after falling in love with the area for three years, she finally felt the rush of inspiration to create her own business.

“I have only worked with female-owned and -run businesses,” she said. “It was inspiring to be around other women.”

While there are many women who taught Pancella much of what she knows about working in the kitchen, her dad, Tony, ran his own security business her whole life, and was a constant source of inspiration.

“Obviously, seeing his hard work is inspiring but also how dedicated he is to his family and just how he manages to balance it all,” she said. “My parents have always been so supportive and it means the world to me.”

“I love to see it grow,” Pancella said, talking about her future goals for the bakery. She revels in the freedom of being a small business owner working for herself — the creativity to choose her own ingredients and flavor profiles and not being beholden to another baker’s recipes.

Pancella’s baked goods are all from scratch, and she tries to maintain basic bases that can be elevated seasonally with fresh, local produce. She leans into the seasons to capitalize on the flavors, some with freshly picked fruits and vegetables, with flavors like rhubarb and berries her favorites in the early summer.

That said, in terms of seasons, Pancella’s favorite will always be the fall. Pumpkin spice is anything but basic when she is baking. She also creates warm and cozy treats using flavors like chai.

“I have a lot of willing taste testers, so there is always inventing going on,” she said.

Whether celebrating birthdays or baby showers, Pancella is excited to decorate any cakes for orders. She works with icing, meringue, and even pressed flowers to create elegant and highly edible creations. Her Instagram @sweethamptoncakery is a hub for her business, but be careful, this is not a page to scroll through while hungry.