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

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And you will find that even the classics--yellow sheet cake with chocolate frosting, treacle tart with whipped cream--can be improved upon by following Ptak's advice. For the shortbread base, combine the flour, icing sugar, salt and butter in a food processor and blitz until the mixture has just come together into a ball. 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. Violet Cakes began life as a Broadway Market stall in 2008, finding its home as a thriving bakery-café on Wilton Way two years later. With no pastry base, this cheesecake is all about the ultra-creamy interior, which contrasts beautifully with the scorched exterior.

It’s not incidental that Ptak’s book draws on Warhol, the king of fusing celebrity with artistic practice. This light almond cake is baked with blackberries and a walnut and rose crumble topping, making it a delicate breakfast cake that’s perfect for serving with coffee mid-morning.After leaving home to pursue a degree in film, Ptak ended up joining the team at Chez Panisse in 2002, where the grande dame of American cuisine Alice Waters instilled her seasonal philosophy into the budding pastry chef. It’s a rarefied place that spurs further cultural blending; its approachable coolness makes the capital impenetrably expensive, deepening the crises of inequality and xenophobia feeding policies that, at their end, mean Britain has closed its doors to future Claire Ptaks. Instead, she found herself spending more and more time meditating on the meaning and nature of home, ultimately deciding to devote the first half of the book to recipes inspired by her native California, and the latter half to treats typical of Britain. For royal watchers, Claire Ptak will forever be known as the London-based California ex-pat who made the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding cake : an Amalfi lemon and Sandringham elderflower confection adorned with clusters of peonies.

The cakes should be starting to turn golden, feel springy to the touch and a skewer inserted should come out clean. Each recipe takes the very best local ingredients and flavours - from fresh-picked berries to peaches straight from the orchard - to create something special and new.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’. Included are gluten-free, refined sugar-free and vegan bakes, as well as the sought-after recipe for the Duke and Duchess's lemon elderflower cake.

Immortalised in the book as Lemon and Elderflower Wedding Cake, the recipe comes with the warning: ‘not for the beginner! While there might be more scones in the England section, I really couldn't classify the recipes as being strictly NoCa or UK. If you baked the cakes in one deep tin, split it into three layers with a large serrated knife, and put the bottom layer into the clingfilm-lined tin.We at Penguin Random House Australia acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the Traditional Custodians and the first storytellers of the lands on which we live and work. Picasso’s sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. The complete set of 25 offset lithographs, on pale blue paper, the full sheets, unbound (as issued), in collaboration with Ralph Thomas Ward (Corkie) who wrote the poems. Others rest upon niche items like violet liqueur, peach leaf, or whitecurrants, only briefly and intermittently available in the States.

Still, until then I have plenty to be going on with — not least the Blondie Peanut Butter Cookies; Triple Cream Amaretto Cheesecake; the charming (and also gluten-free and vegan) sprinkle-topped California Cake; Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting, an old-fashioned American number, which I have a bit of a soft spot for; Popovers; Butterscotch Puff-Puffs (how could I not? With fragrant elderflower and sweet, bright lemon, this stunning cake is one for the ambitious baker.Back in Britain, meanwhile, Ptak drove out to Fern Verrow, the biodynamic Herefordshire farm where Jane Scotter cultivates everything from loganberries to sweetpeas. It was then that Ptak ‘really understood her global impact and what she had created and how she had touched so many… that what she was doing was pretty profound. No one was shouting or throwing pans; the way that people moved around that kitchen was almost balletic. Find out more about Love is a Pink Cake here, and read on to discover 10 recipes from the book that we can’t wait to try first. As a sort-of celebrity baker Ptak is webbed across continents and industries; what seems like name-dropping can also be true to the author’s experience.