Claire Ptak

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Claire Ptak is a baker, pastry chef and food writer. She owns and runs a bakery-café, Violet Cakes, in London's East End and also has a stall at the Broadway Market. She baked the wedding cake for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle - a layered sponge flavoured with lemon and elderflower.

Video Claire Ptak

Early life

Ptak grew up in Inverness, California, where she learnt cookery from her mother and grandmother. She baked a cake for a friend's wedding when she was just seventeen and worked at local bakers, Cake Art. She studied film at Mills College but became a pastry chef at Chez Panisse where she was mentored by Alice Waters for three years. She then moved to London in 2005 and opened Violet Cakes in 2010.

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Royal wedding cake

Violet Cakes was commissioned to bake the cake for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle because Markle had read her book, The Violet Bakery Cookbook and then interviewed her for her lifestyle blog, The Tig. Ptak brought six different samples to Kensington Palace for the couple to try and they selected the Amalfi lemon and elderflower flavour; an unconventional choice which was Ptak's own favourite. Six staff at Violet Cakes worked on the cake and it took five days with the final touches such as fresh flowers being added during the ceremony and up to an hour before the guests were served. Many of the ingredients, such as the elderflower syrup, were sourced from the Queen's estate at Sandringham House. As well as the display cake, which had several elaborate tiers, an additional cake was made to cater for the 650 wedding guests and everything was eaten.

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Writing

Ptak has written several cookery books and her works include:

• The Violet Bakery Cookbook (2015)
• The Old-Fashioned Hand-Made Sweet Shop Recipes Book (2015)
• Home-Made Chocolates and Truffles (2014)
• Boiled Sweets and Hard Candy (2013)
• Leon: Baking & Puddings (2013)
• The Whoopie Pie Book (2012)

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References

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External links

• Violet Cakes - official website

Source of the article : Wikipedia