It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
The Violet Bakery Cookbook

The Violet Bakery Cookbook

Summary

This book is about making baking worth it: simple to cook and satisfying to eat. Wholesome and indulgent - these are recipes you'll want to make again and again.

The Violet Bakery is a cake shop and café in Hackney, east London. The baking is done with simple ingredients including wholegrain flours, less refined sugars and the natural sweetness and muted colours 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 devise recipes that are both nourishing and indulgent. With real thought about taste and using the purest ingredients, she has created the most flavoursome iterations of classic cakes, as well as new treats for modern palates.

Discover the recipes behind the bakery that made Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding cake.

Over 100 recipes include Cinnamon Buns, Mozzarella, Rosemary and New Potato Tarts, Butterscotch Blondies and Loganberry-vanilla Birthday Cake.

Reviews

  • Timeless elegance with a modern approach to flavours ... This book is a timeless classic in the offing
    Dale Berning Sawa, Guardian

About the author

Claire Ptak

A California native, in 2005 Claire Ptak moved to London, where she opened the Violet Bakery in 2010. In 2018, she was commissioned to make the wedding cake for Prince Harry and Megan Markle's wedding cake. Before moving to London, Claire worked as a pastry chef for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. Claire is also a food writer and stylist who has worked with Ottolenghi and Jamie Oliver, the latter of whom called her 'his favourite cake-maker in the whole world'. Her work has appeared in a wide array of publications including Vogue, the Gentlewoman and the New York Times. She has published four cookbooks before Love is a Pink Cake: The Home-Made Sweet Shop, Leon: Happy Baking, The Whoopie Pie Book and The Violet Bakery Cookbook.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more