Saffron documentation

A bright, joyful Ghost theme for food blogs and recipe newsletters, with a smart recipe card.

Thank you for choosing Saffron. This guide covers everything from uploading the theme to setting up paid memberships. If something is not covered here, write to support@codememory.com — we answer within one working day.

• Version1.0.0
• Ghost6.0.0 or later
• Live demosaffron.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com
• AuthorCode Memory

Highlights

• Smart recipe card built from plain editor content: no plugin and no special cards
• Tick-off ingredients and steps, remembered on each reader's device
• Servings scaler: + and − update every quantity, fractions included
• Cook mode keeps the screen awake while cooking
• 'Jump to recipe' and 'Print recipe' buttons; printing shows only the recipe
• Homepage hero with your newest recipe on a round plate and a spinning NEW RECIPE sticker
• Round 'What are you craving?' buttons for your tags
• Crowd favourites: a sideways-scrolling row of featured recipes
• Recipe index page from A to Z with a quick filter
• Cooks page and colourful tag and author pages
• Wavy newsletter band on every page
• Membership page with tiers and a monthly/yearly switch
• Styled paywall for members-only and paid recipes
• Sign in, sign up and account pages
• Light first, with dark and system modes and a reader toggle
• Reading progress bar and image lightbox
• Self-hosted fonts (Fraunces, DM Sans)
• Fully translatable, 18 theme settings, no jQuery

What is in the download

themeforest-saffron-ghost-theme/
├── documentation/                          ← you are here
└── saffron_1.0.0_for_ghost_6.0.0_or_later/
    ├── saffron.zip                          ← upload this file to Ghost
    └── saffron/                             ← the same theme, unzipped, with source files

You only need saffron.zip to use the theme. The unzipped folder is there for developers who want to change the code (see Development).

Installation

1. Sign in to your Ghost admin (yoursite.com/ghost).
2. Go to Settings → Design & branding → Customize → Change theme.
3. Click Upload theme and choose saffron.zip from the saffron_1.0.0_for_ghost_6.0.0_or_later folder. Do not upload the whole download.
4. Click Activate.

Updating

When a new version is released, download it from your ThemeForest Downloads page and upload the new saffron.zip the same way. Ghost asks whether to overwrite the existing theme — choose Overwrite. Your content, navigation and theme settings are kept.

If you edited the theme files yourself, keep a copy of your changes first: an update replaces every file.

Quick setup (10 minutes)

To make your site look like the demo, do these steps in order. Each one is explained in detail further down.

1. Brand: Settings → Design & branding → set the Accent colour, upload a logo and a site icon.
2. Navigation: Settings → Navigation → add your main links (see Navigation).
3. Pages: create the pages in Pages and templates and pick the matching template.
4. Membership: Settings → Membership → turn on signups; add paid tiers and connect Stripe (see Membership).
5. Theme settings: Design & branding → Theme tab (see Theme settings).
6. Tags: give each tag (Weeknight, Baking…) a square feature image and a colour. They become the round craving buttons and colour the tag pages.
7. Featured recipes: mark 4–8 posts as Featured for the Crowd favourites row.

Logo, colours and fonts

Accent colour

Settings → Design & branding → Accent colour. Saffron uses it for buttons, links, highlights and the reading-progress bar. Saffron's accent is tomato red (#E8472B by default), used for buttons, step numbers and highlights. Saffron yellow and pistachio green are fixed supporting colours.

Logo

Upload a logo in Design & branding → Brand. Without a logo, Saffron shows the site title in the theme's display font. A transparent PNG or SVG around 400 × 100 px works best. If your logo is dark, upload a light version in the Theme tab under Logo for dark mode.

Fonts

Saffron ships its own fonts (DM Sans, Fraunces), hosted inside the theme — no requests to Google. To use different fonts, pick a Heading font and Body font in Design & branding → Brand. The theme follows your choice everywhere. Choose Theme default to go back.

Light and dark mode

In the Theme tab, Color scheme sets the default: Light, Dark or System (follows the reader's device). Readers can switch with the moon/sun button in the header or the switch in the menu; their choice is remembered on that device.

Navigation

Settings → Navigation. Primary navigation appears in the header and the full-screen menu. Secondary navigation appears in the footer. Links from the demo:

Tag pages have the address /tag/<tag-slug>/, author pages /author/<author-slug>/.

Theme settings

Settings → Design & branding → Customize. Theme settings are split between the Site wide, Homepage and Post tabs. Every setting:

Writing a recipe

Write the recipe in the normal Ghost editor. Saffron finds it and turns it into a recipe card automatically:

1. Add a heading (H2) that starts with Ingredients.
2. Straight under it, add one line of facts separated by middle dots, for example Serves 4 · Prep 15 min · Cook 40 min · Level Easy. It becomes the row of fact boxes, and the number after Serves is the starting point for the servings scaler.
3. Add a bulleted list of ingredients. Start each line with its quantity: 200 g flour, 1 1/2 cups milk, ½ tsp salt.
4. Add a heading that starts with Method (or Instructions, Directions, Steps), then a numbered list of steps.

Everything from the Ingredients heading to the end of the numbered list goes into the card. Text before and after it (your story, tips, questions) stays as normal content.

Recipe tools for readers

• Tick off — readers tap an ingredient or a step to mark it done. Their ticks and chosen servings are remembered on their device.
• Servings — the + and − buttons scale every quantity that starts an ingredient line. Results are shown as friendly fractions (½, ⅓, ¾) where possible.
• Cook mode — keeps the screen from switching off, in browsers that support it.
• Jump to recipe and Print recipe appear only on posts that contain a recipe. Printing from the button prints only the recipe card.

Turn all tools off with Show recipe tools (Post tab). The Print button has its own setting.

Homepage

1. Hero — Hero title and Hero text beside your newest post on a round plate with a spinning sticker, a search button and your five biggest tags.
2. What are you craving? — your tags as round picture buttons (Show cravings, Cravings title).
3. Fresh from the kitchen — the next nine posts with More recipes (Grid title).
4. Crowd favourites — featured posts in a sideways row (Show favourites, Favourites title).
5. Newsletter band — on every page for visitors (Newsletter title, Newsletter text).

Pages and templates

Saffron includes page templates for the pages every membership site needs. Create a page in Ghost (Pages → New page), set its URL in the page settings, then choose the Template in the same panel.

Tip: the membership page shows your tiers automatically. Anything you write in the page body appears underneath — the demo uses toggle cards for a FAQ.

Membership, tiers and payments

Saffron is built for Ghost's members features: free and paid signups, tiers, a paywall and the Portal popup.

1. Turn on signups

Settings → Membership → Access → Who should be able to subscribe? → Anyone can sign up.

2. Connect Stripe

Settings → Membership → Tiers → Connect with Stripe. Use test mode first, then switch to live mode when you are ready to take real payments.

3. Create tiers

Settings → Membership → Tiers. Add a name, monthly and yearly prices, a description and benefits. Saffron shows every public tier on the membership page with a monthly/yearly switch, and marks the second tier as Most popular.

4. Members-only content

In a post's settings set Post access to Members only, Paid-members only or specific tiers. Readers without access see the start of the post and a paywall box that invites them to join or upgrade. To choose where the preview stops, add a Public preview divider in the editor (type /public).

5. Sign-up forms and buttons

Subscribe forms in the theme create free members and send a confirmation email. Every Subscribe, Sign in and Account button opens Ghost's Portal popup, so members can change plans, update cards and cancel without leaving your site.

Newsletters, comments and search

Newsletters: Settings → Newsletters. Posts can be sent by email when you publish. The theme's subscribe forms subscribe readers to your default newsletters.

Comments: Settings → Membership → Commenting. When on, comments appear under every post that the reader has access to.

Search: works out of the box. The search icon in the header opens Ghost's search; readers can also press Ctrl/⌘ + K.

Reading features

• Reading progress bar on posts, in the post's topic colour (can be turned off in the Post tab).
• Image lightbox: click any image or gallery photo in a post to see it full screen; use the arrow keys to move through a gallery.
• Every editor card is styled: images (regular, wide, full), galleries, quotes, callouts, toggles, bookmarks, buttons, videos, audio, files, products, headers and signups. Create a page with every card to check your brand — the demo's style guide shows them all.

Posts per page

The home, tag and author pages load 10 posts, then a Load more button fetches the next set without reloading the page. To change the number, edit "posts_per_page" in package.json, zip the theme folder and upload it again.

Translation

Every word in the theme can be translated.

1. In the unzipped theme folder, copy locales/en.json to a new file named after your language code, for example locales/fr.json.
2. Translate the values (the text on the right). Keep the keys (the text on the left) and anything in {curly braces} unchanged.
3. Zip the theme folder and upload it.
4. Settings → General → Publication language → enter the same code (fr).

Custom CSS

Small style changes do not need a new theme upload. Settings → Code injection → Site header:

<style>
.recipe-inner { border-top-color: #7fb24a; }
.sticker { color: #e8472b; }
</style>

Development

For larger changes, work on the unzipped saffron/ folder. You need Node.js 20 or later.

cd saffron
npm install        # once
npm run dev        # rebuild CSS/JS on every change
npm run build      # one-off build
npm test           # check the theme with gscan
npm run zip        # dist/saffron.zip, ready to upload

CSS lives in src/css (one file per area, joined by main.css); JavaScript in src/js. Built files go to assets/built. Templates are Handlebars files in the theme root and in partials/.

Questions

Support

Support is included with your purchase and covers: answering questions about the theme's features, and fixing bugs. It does not cover custom changes or problems with third-party code.

Email support@codememory.com with your purchase code and your site address. See the changelog for what changed in each version and third-party materials for credits.