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| - Prerequisite: Watch Christina Tosi's episode on Chef's Table (Season 4, episode 1). This episode focuses on her passion for baking and how it ties in to Milk Bar, her business. She also goes into detail her inspirations behind her most well-known and beloved creations.
CONCEPT: Coming from at least two generations of passionate home bakers, Christina Tosi realized that in lieu of a regular 9-5 job after college she wanted to pursue baking. She moved to NYC with inital dreams of becoming a pastry chef. While working at wd~50 she realized that she most enjoyed baking the simple desserts of her childhood becoming a pastry chef would not accomplish that goal. An introduction to Momofuku's David Chang would change her life forever as it was through this partnership her dreams would come true. Milk Bar is her dreams realized as an actual business. It became so successful that not only has it spread outside NY and lately proceeded westward, it has succeed on its own without Momofuku's influence (it eventually dropped the "Momofuku" part of its name in 2012).
LOCATION: 2nd floor inside Cosmopolitan, literally next to Momofuku.
There are four signature desserts to try at Milk Bar.
1. COOKIES - one of her favorite things to bake from childhood.
Six cookie flavors and at least two gluten free/dairy cookies are available ($4)
Compost: The signature cookie of her cookie line. Tosi fashioned these cookies from her favorite cookie toppings: chocolate and butterscotch chips, salted pretzels, potato chips, graham crackers and coffee grounds. What makes this cookie special are the toppings, a heavenly mixture of sweet and salty. Though they are good, compost cookies are best enjoyed when freshly made. When you buy them prepackaged they lose some of their magic because it's hard and thick. Do yourself a favor and buy the mix or learn how to make them. It's a labor of love but you'll get a much better cookie because of it AND you get to mix your own ingredients!
Corn: This is actually my favorite cookie of the bunch because it tastes like cornbread as a cookie. Actually considered a cult favorite. I like this straight out of the bag.
Chocolate Chocolate: A salted brownie as a cookie. Best served warm and with milk.
2. BIRTHDAY CAKE - by the 6" whole ($55), slice ($14) or 3 truffles ($6.75).
Tosi's diatribe on Chef's Table explains why this cake is made the way it is. She is much more interested in examining individual components of a cake, its textures and flavors as well as how they work as a whole. Making a cake look good by covering it with fondant or frosting is simply unnecessary as she would rather have a continuous glimpse inside. Hence when you buy birthday cake by the whole or the slice you won't see any frosting on the side and when you buy the truffles they aren't coated. The frosting is sweet and the cake is spongy. Small versions of the truffle decorate the top of the cake. If you buy a slice it lasts 1-2 days but it's best as long as the cake doesn't dry out.
3. CRACK PIE - bought as slice ($6.50) or whole ($52).
This is a modern take on chess pie, a pie made for the occasion when you had almost nothing in your pantry used to make pie. She made crack pie as an accident during her stint at wd~50 making family meal. Everyone raved about this so much that they requested this every time during family meal. When Milk Bar opened she was able to serve this to a wider audience.
Crack Pie is unique in the sense that it only has six major ingredients: eggs, butter, heavy cream sugar, vanilla and oat cookie, which serves as the crust. It is dense in the center due to the concentration of eggs and cream. I prefer this over a slice of Birthday Cake as it travels better (it has a smaller box if ordered individually) and there's more flavor in a single slice. It also helps that I love custard and its variants.
4. CEREAL MILK's variants.
During her stint at Momofuku Ko David Chang pressured her to create a dessert to end the multi-course meal as previous dessert iterations were merely an afterthought. While on a trip to a bodega she found inspiration in a cereal aisle and used cereal milk initially on panna cotta. Chang loved it and it became a regular feature on Ko's menu. Nowadays this cereal milk can be found as soft serve (most common) or as a milkshake (personal preference) and goes especially well with cornflake topping.
Didn't try the soft serve but I got to try all 3 of their shakes. There was nothing too special about cereal milk as it was almost flavorless. Birthday cake was slightly better but I prefer birthday cake as a cake. I did enjoy the chocolate malt cake as I like malt shakes. It was made even better due to the addition of the cornflake topping.
As of this writing this is Milk Bar's most western outpost. Subsequent trips to Vegas I'll try to include a Milk Bar stop if at all possible.
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