Love is a Pink Cake: Irresistible bakes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between

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Because the book is so her, it’s important to note that Ptak represents a vision of Britain that, for a certain kind of urbane consumer, is way more palatable than the reality of living in most of the country. It is intended to be a place where you actually want to linger, want to create, whether you’re working there or you’ve just dropped in for a pastry. 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.

Below, a recipe for Violet Cakes’s much-loved Bakewell Bars to whip up while you wait for your copy to arrive. While there might be more scones in the England section, I really couldn't classify the recipes as being strictly NoCa or UK. Ptak explains that she’s ‘very particular about what I eat at what time of day,’ which has come to be her ‘framework’ when devising recipes: from hearty Whole Wheat Biscuits from the ‘Mornings’ chapter, to Apricot, Chamomile and Honey Scones in ‘Afternoons’, or a decadent Mocha Buttercream Tiramisu Cake from ‘Party Party’.Ptak had originally conceived of the book divided by seasons – think Anna Jones’s A Modern Cook’s Year, only baking-focused – but pandemic restrictions scuppered her plans. Or maybe it was 2020, when the country tumbled out of the European Union and into a series of grossly mismanaged pandemic lockdowns, oft-flouted by their authors. Ptak’s book is suffused with perspective and ethos; alongside tricky-fun recipes for things I want to eat, its glory is how clearly related those recipes are to its position. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

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. As she prepares to release her latest cookbook, Love Is A Pink Cake, Vogue caught up with Ptak about cutting her teeth at Chez Panisse, falling for British baked goods and why she takes a West Coast mentality with her wherever she goes.The two books, published within a week of each other, are authored by ambassadors of British baking, representative perhaps more so of the idea of it than individual recipes — although they both have some great ones, and Pink Cake in particular is indispensable. The UK, she is now convinced, has the best cream in the world, and she’s currently planning a pilgrimage between tea rooms across the north of England. Berry is less outwardly political than other Bakers Off, but in a culture where politeness and complacency is establishmentarian, that is itself political; moreover, Bake Off and the culture it fosters are well-known ornaments of nostalgia for a mythic green and pleasant land. Her move across the Atlantic further broadened her culinary horizons: ‘It’s so much more international… to be able to be more in the centre of all of these things here in London definitely influenced a lot of my work.

Some people really do make Edna Lewis’s stone fruit lard pie with Scott Peacock at Alice Waters’s house for the Chez Panisse 40th-anniversary bash. As a judge on The Great British Bake Off, Berry became a representative of a kind of British baking for many in the U. To say that the book suffers in comparison to Ptak’s would be incorrect; they are different, with divergent goals, and as a hobbyist I need a completist tome as much as I enjoy reveling in Ptak’s meadowy sensibilities and artistic sympathy. I know that all I’ve pretty much done is shout recipe titles at you, but it’s hard to temper my excitement, and I’m not sure I’d ever want to. Ptak might well have stayed at Chez Panisse long-term, were it not for the fact that she met and fell in love with an Englishman – decamping to London to live with him full-time in 2005, years before the British capital’s food revolution got underway.While she notes that it’s ‘funny being sort of associated with one half of the family,’ Ptak isn’t one to take sides. This book is a collection of her formative baking stories, tips and current favourite recipes - what she is baking throughout the day, for any occasion. When she came to work as a food stylist later in her career (for household names like Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson), it was ‘definitely’ driven by a desire to ‘scratch that itch. Claire Ptak's brilliant new cookbook mixes the best of her acclaimed British bakery with her roots in Northern California .