Icing on the cake

CLAIRE PTAK makes wonderful cakes. It all started when she was little girl in Point Reyes, California – every time her Irish grandmother visited they baked cakes together all day long.

At Christmas granny would send 15 different types of cookies – bliss. Claire couldn’t wait to open the parcel; all she wanted to do was cook. Once she took all the spices from the kitchen cupboard out to the sandbox to ‘make cakes’.

As soon as she could legally work – at 15 – she got a weekend job at a local bakery. While her pals were bebopping around the local mall she was learning how to make croissants.