Momofuku Milk Bar: A Cookbook

I've been baking from Christina's book for a few years now and I've been putting off writing a review, but I find that it's time to post a review, even though I'm not all the way through this book yet. I first started baking about 2.5 years ago when my friend introduced me to the show "Great British Bake Off". Ever since then I've wanted to create the things they created, and in my search for challenging cookbooks, I stumbled upon this one, Joanne Chang's book "Flour" and also Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller. I am not afraid of a challenge, and when I read multiple people speak about Christina's book being too involved and difficult with unusual ingredients, I knew I had to try it. As mentioned multiple times here, be sure to read her directions in the front of the book before trying any of them. I first made the Compost cookies, moved on to the Confetti cookies, and then tried my hand at her birthday cake (for three of my friends who were celebrating birthdays the same weekend). And let me tell you, I became an immediate fan, and I fell in love with this woman's genius and her flavor combinations. I love all the cookie recipes in this book and have made most all of them. Some of them can be super sweet (i.e. cornflake marshmallow cookies), but on the whole they're decadent and somewhat complex. Out of all the cookies, the only one that fell a bit short for me was the corn cookies. I just don't want to taste corn in a cookie. It tasted like a big burst of corn that morphed into a sugar cookie that melted in your mouth. That being said, all of my coworkers loved them. So, I'm chalking that one up to personal taste. I moved on to trying her cakes after the success with the birthday cake. I made her Apple Pie Cake and Oh lord that cake is magical and wonderful and delicious. And then I tried her chocolate malt cake (although I used the version from the milkbarstore website so I could add milk chocolate frosting..not included in the book version), and I kid you not, the salespeople at my workplace emailed me saying that that cake was the best thing they've ever tasted in their entire lives. I doubled the amount of burnt marshmallow from her recipe, by the way. ON to the pies in the book. I made her Brownie pie and AGAIN, it's a masterpiece of flavors. That one is both simple to make and decadent. I recommend trying that one for the beginners in the group who are just picking up this book for the first time. I then finally said, "Steve.....just make the Grapefruit pie! You've been wanting to for years!" So, I made the Grapefruit pie recently, and upon first taste it was very flavorful (the crust and the passionfruit curd, especially), but the topping of condensed milk just wasn't doing it for me (mostly due to texture). It just tasted strange. So, I found a recipe online for a limoncello grapefruit mousse and I remade the pie, and the tartness from the mousse so perfectly complemented the sweetness of the curd and the butteriness of the Ritz cracker crust. Recipes I'm wanting to try going forward: PB&J Pie, Carrot Layer Cake, Bagel Bombs, Kimchi and Blue Cheese Croissants, and Chinese Sausage Focaccia. If any of you have made any of these that I haven't done so far, please do share your thoughts. EDIT 9-23-21 - Since writing this review a while ago, I have made the Cinnamon Bun Pie, the Banana Cream Pie, and then the Banana Cake. The cinnamon bun pie was only okay. I like the filling, and the topping, but I found the bread to be a bit too.....bread-y? Also, the pie baked up so much that it wasn't really a pie anymore, but a large disc of baked dough with cream cheese filling on top. I would never make that one again. The Banana Cream pie was wonderful. That filling! That filling made me want to weep. I found that I didn't make a good crust, though. I added too much butter and when it chilled, the butter chocolate crust stuck to the pie plate like glue!!! So, it was a mess. But it was oh so delicious. As for the Banana Cake, it was a very very fiddly process. It was comprised of Banana cake, Banana cream, Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache, Hazelnut frosting, and a hazelnut crunch. For the Ganache, I had to make her fudge sauce in order to incorporate into the ganache. For the crunch, I had to make a hazelnut praline, and also buy feuilletine as well, while mixing those with hazelnut paste (Which is basically like peanut butter, but with hazelnuts). I converted the cake to 8", and by doing so, had to buy two jars of Hazelnut paste online here (180g per jar) for $25 per jar. This became an expensive cake. But it was worth it! As I said above her banana filling was perfect, and the cake itself was amazing! Seriously good. I personally don't really like hazelnuts, but I loved them in this recipe. The taste, the texture, were all very good. This book is fantastic. I'm sad for anyone who hasn't had success with the recipes.

I’ve been on a baking rampage since I got this book. I read it cover-to-cover & I’ve made 8 recipes so far. I normally don’t bother reviewing stuff (I know, I know..) but the negative reviews of this book are so ridiculous. People negatively reviewed because the recipes are too complicated & require special ingredients that cost money? What do you expect?! I’m sure happy Christina didn’t “dumb down” her recipes for this book. If you want a cheap easy recipe, go on Pinterest or buy a box of Betty Crocker… I want to be able to make the authentic desserts from Milk Bar, even if it means I have to buy a $12 roll of acetate and some fancy cake flour. If that’s how they do it at Milk bar, that’s what I want to attempt at home. I love how there are lots of textures in all of Christina’s recipes & great depth of flavor, not just sweet. I love how unusual and unique the recipes are – no boring snickerdoodles or devil’s food cake. I made the birthday cake & cereal milk ice cream for Father’s Day & what a hit! The cake seemed a little intimidating with 4 different components (the cake, the cake soak, the frosting, the cake crumb) but making it was very simple and not time-consuming as I envisioned. The cake is inspired by the funfetti cake mix but funfetti has nothing on this cake! This is my favorite cake I’ve ever had. No words describe how amazing it is & how impressive you’ll look showing up with a cake like this. It wasn’t even difficult to assemble. The cereal milk ice cream was very unusual but very delicious. Although the finished recipes have a lot of components, every recipe is explained so clearly that they’re practically fool-proof. To those negatively reviewing because your cookies didn’t come out: I seriously doubt you followed instructions. I’ve made 2 different batches of cookies (blueberry and cream cookies & confetti cookies) & both turned out AMAZING. Did you follow her instructions & use King Arthur bread flour? Mix the fats for 10 minutes until it wasn’t streaky? Refrigerate for at least an hour and go straight into the oven? I had zero issues following the clearly-explained methods. Every recipe I’ve made so far has turned out amazingly well & I look forward to working through the entire book. UPDATE: I’ve since made every single cake (some multiple times) and every ice cream recipe in this book. Any gathering or excuse I can find to make one of these cakes, I make one. Every single person rants and raves about how it’s the best cake they’ve ever had. I have a lot of books on ice cream, but Christina’s recipes are my absolute favorite. She uses gelatin instead of eggs, so you get a pure flavor of whatever the ice cream is (the graham ice cream is the best!). Again, to anyone thinking the recipes are too complicated or time-consuming: they’re not! If she says cream the ingredients for 3 minutes, then set a timer for THREE minutes! I’m no professional baker but I can follow instructions, and every single recipe I’ve made (over half the recipes in this book!) have turned out PHENOMENAL. Just follow Christina’s very simple instructions & you’re set! You don’t have to make everything in the same day. Sure, the cakes have 4-5 components to them, but that’s what makes them the greatest cakes you’ll ever taste. The two frostings most of the cakes have means more complex flavor & then the crumb adds a nice textural component. You can not only make some of the components in advance, but you can make the entire cake up to 2 weeks in advance! That’s what I love! You have to freeze the cake for a minimum of 5 hours to be able to remove the acetate, and you can keep it in the freezer up to 2 weeks! Normally, I would never freeze a fully assembled cake, but these turn out perfectly fresh – you can’t even tell it’s been frozen. I’m also obsessed with the assembly of these cakes! You bake it in a sheet pan & cut the 3 layers out with a cake ring. You use acetate to create the perfect layers – so easy with Christina’s clear instructions but SO striking!! This is 10000% my favorite cookbook EVER. I will definitely shed a tear when I’ve baked everything & I’m craving new recipes.

THis is one of the best books available. Saw the author on TV and she inspired us to try the book. Best cookie metheod we've used.

After having Birthday Cake at Milk Bar in LA, I knew I had to have the recipe. I looked online for a copycat version and instead found the real thing — right here in this book! I was so excited to see that Christina Tosi released the recipes that I immediately purchased this book, as well as “All About Cake” (another by Tosi with MB recipes). After reading some of the reviews, I was a bit nervous because everyone swears the recipes are complicated and time consuming. However, I found this to be very untrue. I made the Birthday cake recipe start to finish in three hours and it turned out amazing. It literally looked and tasted like the cake that I had from the bakery. (I was scared that she might have changed the recipes in the book to not be an exact replica — I was wrong!!) I’ve made 9 recipes from the two books. What I like is that the recipes are just a starting point for endless possibilities. Christina even writes different ideas and ways to adapt the recipes into something of your own. All the recipes I’ve made have turned out to be phenomenal — like the corn flake chocolate chip marshmallow cookie — it’s a next level kinda cookie! The corn cookie is the greatest thing I’ve ever come across. Christina is a genius with her flavor combinations. On the flip side, be prepared for the investment. Just about every recipe calls for hard-to-find, pricey ingredients. I drove all over town in search of passion fruit purée and ended up paying $30 for it and it was just one of the elements in the chocolate chip cake. Most of the other ingredients can be found online or at specialty food stores. I will say though — if you’re a foodie and enjoy unique flavor profiles, PLEASE go out of your way to find the ingredients and pay the price. You’ll thank me (or Christina) in the end, because it really makes a world of difference. Don’t try to substitute ingredients because you won’t end up with the same product (trust me!).

As a Chang acolyte and pastry chef by trade I pre-ordered this book several months before it was published and waited for the UPS guy with bated breath. First impressions were good. Fun & interesting intros by Chang & Tosi and an extensive ingredients list (that I actually read, which is unusual) gave the book a great start. For me, it is important to understand what is going on in other professional kitchens in order to become a better and more well-rounded baker. However, I can see how the average home cook who just wants to bake some cookies would not be interested in that. I glanced over the materials & techniques sections, but for the untrained maybe you *should* read that. It will give you an idea what you are getting yourself into with the recipes. They are somewhat complex and multifaceted but yield results that are leaps and bounds beyond Betty Crocker. (sorry, Betty) Having tried (and also made) Crack Pie in the past I knew it was too sweet for my tastes so I didn't bother with it again. For the people who gave the book 1 star and complained that it is shockingly sweet, maybe they should have read the ingredients and actually thought about how filling a cookie crust with granulated sugar and light brown sugar combined with a couple other ingredients might turn out. Sweet. Duh. I adore that the recipes are in metric. Makes my life so much easier not having to convert everything (thank you!!!). For those who complain that it is complicated, please just try using a scale once. You'll dirty many less dishes and your measuring is far more accurate. Some recipes I've had great results with: Compost Cookies - So far have made them 5 times for some chefs, a kid's charity event and for my family. Everyone loved them, but the chefs were the most appreciative of the texture/sweet/salty balance. I've modified them several times, based on what add-ins I had on hand and all were successful. Grasshopper Pie - Made twice, and both times they were for trial menus at restaurants. Loved by all, including the guests we shared samples with. A local TV crew actually filmed a shot of the finished pie plated for service, but it didn't make it on the segment. Bagel Bombs - Made several times, sold well at a gourmet market I worked at. With some tweaks they were fantastic. For me, the dough needed more salt and the filling less bacon grease. I plan on trying other recipes as the need arises, and know I can rely on this book to provide accurate recipes that appeal to my desire to make sophisticated yet approachable desserts.

This is a fantastic cookbook. If you like desserts get this. It has recipes with parts and recipes for those parts so don’t think you’re going to throw together some AI slop from Pinterest. There’s a lot to be said for a book of recipes and techniques with brief how and why without having to read through a blog about someone’s life and battle all the pop up ads before you get to a recipe. Highly recommended.

I preordered this cookbook as soon as I could. I have been dying to get it. I have never been to NYC, so I have never tried the baked goods. I have made all the recipes I could find online. I loved the crack pie, and chocolate malted milk cake, but the blueberry and cream cookies really haunted me. I could not wait to try the corn cookies especially. It took me a week or so to get in the Just Corn that I needed. In the meantime, I started with the cornflake marshmallow cookies. The first six I baked off were overbaked. I was expecting them to take about 18 minutes, like the book said, but I ended up pulling them at 15. The next batch got removed at 12 minutes. I think I could have gone 11. I know they were the right size because I had the right quantity. My one heads up about this book is that the baking times for the cookies seems really off to me. Luckily I bake a lot, so I know what a cookie should look like when it is done. The middle should look completely unbaked while the edges are lightly browned. They continue to bake quite a bit after they come out. The center will be fully baked by the time they cool. I was able to adjust quickly. For cookies this size I think the baking time should be about 11-12 minutes. I have made: chocolate marshmallow cookies, corn cookies, confetti cookies, candy bar pie, crack pies (one with pecans!), and the compost cookies so far. Every one has had a much deeper depth of flavor than ordinary baked goods. I believe she is right when she says that milk powder is the msg of the baking world. It does seem to make everything taste better. The crack pie recipe in the book is different and far superior to previously published versions. This pie is truly incredible, and my family prefers the pecan variation. The corn cookie was worth tracking down the Just Corn. My husband said they reminded him of his favorite childhood cereal, King Vitamin. We loved this cookie! I currently have passion fruit puree and a cake ring on order from Amazon. I cannot wait to try the cakes and the grapefruit pie. I highly recommend this book if you like a bit of a challenge in the kitchen. You really want to track down the right equipment and ingredients to do these recipes justice! It is well worth the effort.

After many visits to Milk Bar on trips to NYC, I was thrilled to receive this cookbook for my birthday this year. The first thing I did was read it cover to cover. I really enjoy Tosi's approach to baking. She has fun, experiments a lot, and isn't overly fussy when she doesn't need to be. At first I was confused by the chapter organization, but I now understand it's organized by "mother ingredients." Each recipe builds on a mother ingredient and the variations provided keep things interesting. Some of the recipes are actually recipes within recipes within recipes (we must go deeper), but many of them are time intensive without being overly difficult. As a home baker who was looking for a change from the usual cookie and cake recipes, Tosi provides a refreshing change to my baking routine. Baking from this cookbook will require special ingredients and some special tools, but most of them are readily accessible in the super market or here on Amazon. I like that Tosi gives a run down of the tools and ingredients she uses, down to her preferred brands. It really helps produce results that are as similar to Milk Bar's as possible. Most of these ingredients are not overly expensive, and as long as you are baking multiple things from this book, you will use them up. The other thing I like about Tosi's approach to baking is that she's not overly fussy when she doesn't need to be. I love me some Martha Stewart, but I've found that her recipes often require steps that are, frankly, not really necessary. For example, sifting powdered sugar for frosting. Totally overrated. Tosi has instructions on how to brown butter in the microwave. So when she says beat your butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla for 7-8 minutes, I listen. And when she says candy bar pie is a pain to make, it definitely makes you take a pause and consider whether you're actually up for attempting it (so far no). So far I've made Compost Cookies (based on graham crust), Confetti Cookies (based on birthday crumb), and Cornflake Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Cookies (based on cornflake crumb). All were beyond delicious.

Très complet et permet de connaître la pâtisserie de Christina Tosi

My daughter, a real home chef, was so delighted to received her Momofuku Recipe Book in time for her birthday, despite me telling her that it wasn't going to get to her before the end of February. You're amazing, Amazon!

Lo único que hay ingredientes que en España es más dificil encontrar. Los que somos muy cocinitas, podemos encontrar un sustituto a según qué ingrediente, pero quien no sabe mucho de cocina...lo tiene más complicado.

I bought this because I fell in love with the birthday cake after seeing the pictures online. I read a review of the cookbook and in the preview of the book, each recipe was shown opposite a photo of what it would look like. Very inspiring. I received the cookbook, not half of the photos I was expecting. Much much text, too much, I was looking for recipe with photo of recipe...

To be short and to the point this book is a little overrated and hyped. A few of the cons are 1. There are hardly any pictures of the baked goods (there are however pictures of Tossi looking at cows) 2. There is a long intro as to what kind of flour, butter, etc they use which are items most people wouldn't normally keep in their kitchen 3. Some ingredients, like freeze dried corn, I don't think are available in the UK at all (which to be fair is something that's probably not easy to find in America either). 4. I made what I thought was the easiest recipe first, their classic cornflake cookies. They didn't work at all. It calls for them to be baked for far too long and contains so much butter the dough melts in the oven becoming a cookie puddle. Pros 1. Great unique ideas 2. All recipes have ingredients listed in grams It is a fun and funky book at heart but it's not very adapted to the home baker. I will try baking from it again but will keep in mind the ingredient ratios and tweak where necessary. It also might be worth googling what you plan to make and see how others fared before wasting any expensive ingredients. Torn between giving it 2 stars (for the cookie disaster) or 3 stars for it's fun nature.