Cookbook Review: The Violet Bakery Cookbook by Claire Ptak!

Title: The Violet Bakery Cookbook
Author: Claire Ptak
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: Sep 29 2015
Source: Ten Speed Press


Book Description:

Violet is a bijou 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. Over 100 recipes include nourishing breakfasts, midday snacks,
teatime treats, puddings to share, pantry preserves, and stylish celebration cakes. For example:

Morning – Buckwheat Granola or Cinnamon Buns
Midday – Squash, Brown Butter and Sage Quiche or Mozzarella, Rosemary and New Potato Tarts
Teatime – Butterscotch Blondie or Ginger Molasses Cake
Desserts – Cherry Cobbler or Fig Leaf Ice-cream
Party Party – Loganberry-vanilla Birthday Cake or Coconut-cream Trifle Cake

This book is about making baking worth it: simple to cook and satisfying to eat.

Review:

★★★★★

I absolutely love this cookbook. It's vibrant, easy to follow, and full of amazing sounding recipes. The year is almost over, and this is so far one of the best cookbooks I've gotten to review in 2015.

It's sorted by the time of day and the type of event. There's also an introduction, a guide to a mise en place, tips, tasting tips, and even notes on foraging for fresher ingredients.

A nice touch to this book is the amount of personal stories that are inside. It makes the book clear that it's written as a labor of love, and that the authors really care about food and cooking. The directions are written concisely, and are easy to follow. That makes it pretty approachable for any skill level of cook. There's a nice blend of both sweet and savory recipes, which I wasn't expecting but nonetheless it is a pleasant surprise. There's also conversions on each recipe page for American use. I really appreciated this method, instead of shoving a chart in the back. This way, I wasn't constantly switching pages back and forth in order to know what I'm supposed to be doing.

The photography included in The Violet Bakery Cookbook is absolutely stunning. It's one of those books that's damn near art, it's aesthetically pleasing enough to just flip through and look at the pictures, if we're being honest. But just as importantly, there's also a lot of photos included. This is a huge plus for me- I don't buy a cookbook if I know there's little to no pictures inside. I like knowing how my food is supposed to look when it's finished!

I really like this book because there's a lot of elegant, light, and floral flavors. I love cooking with flower ingredients, and I'm happy to have more in my baking arsenal. The three dishes that I'm most excited to try from this book are: Honey and Rose Water Madeleines, Olive Oil Sweet Wine Cake, and Fig Leaf Ice Cream.

All in all, I think that this is a great baking book for anyone who likes to bake, no matter if it's sweet or savory. I look forward to using this for one of my teatime parties! I received a copy of this guide in exchange for my honest review.