The Violet Bakery Cookbook - Hardcover

Ptak, Claire

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1607746719 ISBN 13: 9781607746713

Publisher: Ten Speed Press, 2015

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the 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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Morning

Mornings at Violet are my favorite time. I am a morning person; I always have been. I love anything baked in the morning for breakfast, and I would easily eat cake for breakfast every day if I didn’t know any better. I do keep a jar of my quinoa granola at home and love to serve it with a good goat’s or sheep’s milk yogurt as much as with cow’s milk yogurt. Many days I simply have a banana or a piece of sourdough or rye toast for my own breakfast. Sometimes it’s a boiled egg. At Violet we serve generous slices of sourdough with salted butter, seasonal jam, and raw almond butter with sea salt. We get a cold-pressed almond butter from Cornwall that is so sweet and almondy that I prefer it to a toasted variety.

My favorite recipe in this section is possibly the cinnamon bun—a quick and easy bun that melts in your mouth. Every Sunday my friends Sylvia and Jo and I get cinnamon buns and coffees from the bakery and head up to Hackney Marshes with our dogs. A long walk in the wild fields that are also home to many of the ingredients I like to forage for is the perfect way to end the hectic London week.
The recipes in this section are a selection of breakfast items from across a year at Violet. I have included my favorite fruit and muffin or scone pairings from each season, but you can of course substitute here and there where appropriate, depending on what is best at the market. 
 

Buckwheat, apple, and crème fraîche scones

Buckwheat flour is one of my favorite flours to bake with. It has a very strong flavor, so it works best when mixed with other flours. It is also gluten free. In this recipe I’ve added a combination of spelt and oat flours to bolster the buckwheat. Spelt and oat are flavorful, but when mixed with buckwheat, they take a backseat. The spelt has enough gluten to carry the scones and yet leave them with a very appealing crumbly texture. The grated apple is sweet and moist and marries perfectly with the crème fraîche. For more on flours, read my pantry section (see page 224).

Makes 12 large scones
150g (1½ cups) fine spelt flour
   (see page 40), plus more for rolling 
100g (⅔ cup) whole grain spelt flour
175g (1⅔ cups) oat flour
225g (1⅓ cups plus 2 tablespoons)
   buckwheat flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons salt
100g (½ cup) light or dark
   muscovado sugar
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 teaspoon lemon zest
250g (1 cup plus 1 tablespoon)
   cold unsalted butter, cut into
   1-cm (½-inch) cubes 
300g (1¼ cups) crème fraîche
500g (18 ounces) grated apple
   (5 or 6 tart apples such as
   Discovery, Gravenstein, Cox’s
   Orange Pippin, or Granny Smith)
1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons 
   milk, for the egg wash

Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F (180°C/355°F convection). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl along with the zests and whisk together well. Using a pastry cutter, the back of a fork, or a mixer, cut in the cubes of butter until they are the size of large peas.

Stir together the crème fraîche and grated apple. Mix this into the flour and butter mixture until it barely holds together. Turn out on to a flour-dusted surface and pat roughly into a square. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then flatten it to about 2.5cm (1 inch) thick with a rolling pin. Fold it in half so that you have a rectangle. Then fold it in half again into a small square. Let it rest for 7 minutes, then roll it into a square about 4cm (1½ inches) thick. 

Use a sharp knife to cut the square into three long pieces. Cut each log into two and then each square into two triangles. Place on the lined baking sheet (or wrap in plastic wrap and store in the freezer), brush with the egg wash, and bake for about 35 minutes, or until golden brown. 
These are best eaten on the day you bake them.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1607746719
• ISBN 13: 9781607746713
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272