The Violet Bakery Cookbook
A design-forward cookbook for sweet and savory baked goods from London's popular Violet Bakery that focuses on quality ingredients, seasonality, and taste (as opposed to science) as the keys to creating satisfying, delightful homemade pastries, tarts, sweets, and more.
Violet is a jewel box of a cake shop and café in Hackney, east London. The baking is done with simple ingredients including whole grain flours, less refined sugars, and the natural sweetness and nuanced hues of seasonal fruits. Everything is made in an open kitchen for people to see. Famed for its exquisite baked goods, Violet has become a destination.
Owner Claire Ptak uses her Californian sensibility to create recipes that are both nourishing and indulgent. With a careful eye to taste and using the purest ingredients, she has created the most flavorful iterations of classic cakes, as well as new treats for modern palates. Over 100 recipes include nourishing breakfasts, midday snacks, desserts to share, fruit preserves, and stylish celebration cakes.
This book is about making baking worth it: simple to cook and satisfying to eat.
Author
CLAIRE PTAK, a California Native, worked as a pastry chef for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse before moving to London. She staged in restaurants including Moro and St. John before starting Violet, her cake stall on Broadway Market. Claire opened the Violet bakery in 2010. Claire is also a food writer and stylist whose work includes Ottolenghi’s Guardian column, as well as writing for Observer Food Monthly, Jamie Magazine, Kinfolk, and Vogue. In 2018 Claire was selected to bake the royal wedding cake for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Review
"Unlike so many baking and pastry books, which are merely eye candy, this one includes nourishing and intriguing recipes like Loganberry and Geranium Jam; Sweet Potato, Coconut, Date and Rye Muffins; and Roasted Quince. Its homespun aesthetic will make this a fixture on your kitchen counter." —Georgia Pellegrini, The Wall Street Journal
"While the recipes in her book are unusual and inventive, they’re also incredibly tasty." —Cree LeFavor, New York Times
"Violet Bakery promises to be a doozy: at her uber-popular London bakery, pastry chef Claire Ptak serves up all the beautiful cakes and biscuits anyone could ask for." —Paula Forbes, Epicurious
"Pastry Chef Claire Ptak has hit the nail on the head with her London bakery serving up delightful treats that have garnered a cult following (in that ever so civilized British way) in the UK and beyond." —Meghan Markle, The Tig
"Ms. Ptak, a pastry chef who once worked at Chez Panisse, applies a modern, seasonal and decidedly Californian sensibility to the proper British baked goods in her London bakery. [...] They are just the kind of intriguing yet unfussy sweets I can see making all year long as the different ingredients come in and out of season." —Melissa Clark, New York Times
"Claire is one of my all-time favorite cake-makers, and all her baking is seasonal, beautiful, achievable, real, and of course, totally delicious.” —Jamie Oliver
“A work of beauty. These gorgeous recipes are lovely and nourishing—you’ll want to stay home baking all day.” —April Bloomfield
"...I found Claire Ptak's new book, The Violet Bakery Cookbook, to be a breath of fresh air. Claire's philosophy? Flavor first, without exception. Yes, she offers recipes that are gluten-free, vegan, and made with foraged ingredients, but her book doesn't fit any one of these schools of thought. Claire bakes for flavor." —Meredith Swinehart, Gardenista