Violet Cakes

A Review of Two New Major British Baking Books - Eater

"Ptak, a Northern Californian who was a pastry chef at Chez Panisse before moving to London, started off selling cakes from an East London market stall and opened her cafe, Violet, in 2010. In key ways, Ptak and her bakery typify an East London style that I’ve been describing to my friends for the past year. It’s a post-industrial space softened by the memory of a country house you’ve never been to: a little gingham and a lot of linen; terra-cotta pottery; dried flowers; sponge painting; enamelware; natural wine; white-washing; candlelight. The food in this paradigm, especially as shot for Love Is a Pink Cake, is unfussy, neutrally and pastel-colored, and showcases big, ripe hunks of whichever fruit’s now in season, all arrayed in rustic interiors nobody’s swept up before the shoot. At the same time, Violet is unique among London’s, and especially East London’s, bakeries, many of which have proliferated in a standard mode of sourdough loaves and, for the most part, viennoiserie. Violet is different. It makes little yeasted dough, if any. Even Ptak’s cinnamon rolls are a quickbread, dense and barely yielding. She makes crumbly U.S.-style scones and serves cupcakes and slices of buttercream-filled and frosted layer cakes that someone like me raised in Chicago wants for their birthday. It was on the merit of those cakes that Ptak came to notoriety: Without the frilly piping, fondant, or stiff sponge of British celebration cakes, hers are neat, intentional messes in the style of the time, with dramatic swoops of icing and arranged with flowers." - Rachel P. Kreiter