A Brief History of Balfours

Anyone who has ever tried one of their famous Frog Cakes knows about Balfour’s.  

But did you know it began as the City Steam Biscuit Factory?  

Scottish immigrants James Calder and his wife Margaret (neé Balfour) established their first bakery in Adelaide in 1853 which soon became famous for its biscuits, even supplying them to Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred when he visited Australia in 1867.  

In 1877 Margaret’s nephew John Balfour joined as a partner and the business became Calder and Balfour. The company began to expand, exporting their goods to other Australian colonies, but this expansion was cut short by the Depression of the 1890s.  

Balfour’s survived. It is believed that, following a trip to Paris, the iconic Frog Cake was born in 1923.  

It stayed a family business for many decades, run by Elizabeth Balfour’s son Jack and her son-in-law Charles Wauchope, changing its name to Balfour Wauchope in 1924. However, San Remo took over in 2008, and in 2023 the business was sold to the Western Australian owned Australian Pie Company.  

Despite all the changes though, we have it on good authority that the Frog Cake lives on!