Violet Bakery: Week One
Another "perfect chocolate chip cookie" recipe.
My neighbor and I have found common ground in our love for all things food, so she let me borrow her copy of the Violet Bakery Cookbook for the month! This book is filled with sweet and savory baked goods from the popular London bakery, Violet Bakery. According to the back of the book, it is about “making baking worth it: simple to cook and satisfying to eat.” We love to see it.
Fun fact: the owner of this bakery, Claire Ptak, even made the royal wedding cake for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle!
September Cookbook: The Violet Bakery Cookbook by Claire Ptak
I was soaking up the last few days of summer with the melon granita (pg. 177)! I’m more of an autumn girl myself, but I do love an icy treat. Granitas are pretty simple to make – blend up some fruit, strain, freeze the juices and then fluff up with a fork every couple of hours. After about six hours, you’ll have a delicious frozen snack!
A savory bread pudding, you say? Color me intrigued. Despite looking like a crime scene, I absolutely loved this kale, leek and ricotta bread pudding (pg. 78) . 10/10 will make again.
Not to be controversial, but chocolate chip cookies are not the best cookies. Chocolate chip cookies do have their place in this world, but if given the option, I’m probably going with a snickerdoodle or a chewy gingersnap. That’s my opinion!! But, the egg yolk chocolate chip cookies (pg. 140) did catch my eye. Why are the egg yolks so important?? I needed to find out. (Okaaaay, investigative journalism vibes!) Claire mentions that she learned this technique from a French pastry chef and claimed that these were the best chocolate chip cookies she had ever had. (Don’t they all?) Not sure this was the “best” I have ever had, but at the end of the day, any cookie will be a cookie I will happily eat.
With the leftover egg whites, I tried making the coconut macaroons (pg. 154) but unfortunately, those failed miserably. Coconut macaroons are generally pretty simple to make, but the book used a different method than what I was used to. The macaroons did not keep their shape in the oven and ultimately I was left with a coconutty mess. Boo. 😞
I don’t have any food-related news to report, so I’ll leave you with this tweet that I think about every time I have a moment of weakness and order Chop Shop on Door Dash.
Thanks for reading, sweeties! 🍎
Is that what the chocolate chip cookies looked like BAKED??? Weird. (But still eatable...)