Milk Bar Life

My attempt at recreating the cover of the cookbook.

I was already Milk Bar obsessed and now with my new cookbook I can truly live the Milk Bar life. I think this cookbook just went to the top of my list as being my favorite cookbook. Every recipe is wacky, weird, unusual and amazing!

Like the Milk Bar Life, my baking life isn't so pretty. I'm ready to move on from my old and messy college rent house!

I read this cookbook cover to cover. I don't ever do that. Christina is so quirky and I love the way her brain works. She believes in a cookie a day, using a combination of unique and regular grocery store ingredients and having a real passion or story that belongs to each recipe. She also gives cookie lessons on the best way and amount of time to incorporate ingredients, best timing for baking, cooling and storing etc. 

Compared to the first Milk Bar cookbook, Milk Bar Life features off the menu recipes that come from Christina's life outside the bakery. There are different chapters of the book such as A Cookie A Day, Supermarket Finds, Freakin' Weekend and Hand-Me-Downs. I wrote down a list of the recipes I want to tackle, but first up are The Greta. 

These cookies are named after Christina's mom because she was raised on her mom baking them. Christina's mom would send her disposable 9 x13 pans of the cookies in college and still delivers them to the bakery. I was instantly intrigued with the amount of sprinkles covering the whole top layer and because sugar cookies are my favorite kind of cookie.

Because they are baked in a 9 x 13 pyrex they come out more like a sugar cookie bar. Nothing to complain about there, but next time I am going to try baking them in a jelly roll pan to get a flatter more cookie like texture. Besides that, the vanilla and sweet sugar flavoring is on point. Christina mentions how you can either cover them with a cinnamon sugar mixture or with vibrant sprinkles!  The sprinkle look reminded me of my Cookie Butter Rice Krispy Treats and the cinnamon sugar version kind of reminds me of my Snickerdoodle Bars

Milk Bar Sugar Cookie Squares
yields 2 dozen, 2 inch squares*

Ingredients:
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup grapeseed or other neutral oil (I used canola)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup milk
sprinkles or cinnamon sugar

Directions:
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 in baking pan using the wrappers from your butter. *As you can see in the pictures I got 24 tall squares of cookie. They were more of a cookie browning than a cookie. I want to bake these again using a jelly roll pan (15 x 10 in) so I can get larger but flatter cookies. If you test this out let me know how it goes!

Combine the butter and sugar in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream on high until homogenous, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, oil and vanilla and mix until just combined, about 1 minute. 

Add the flour salt and baking soda, mixing until just combined, about 30 seconds. It's important to not over mix the dry ingredients when making any kind of cookie. Over mixing causes your cookies to be dry and crumbly. Mix in the milk until combined, about 30 seconds too. 

Spread the dough in an even layer in the prepared pan. Mix together cinnamon and sugar to sprinkle over the top or decorate with colorful sprinkles. 

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until slightly undercooked, or 3 to 5 minutes if you want a firmer cookie. My came out really doughy which was sinfully delicious! 

Living the Milk Bar Life is fun and so yummy! Next up I want to make Christina's Lemon Bars, Ritz Cookies, Grandma's Oatmeal Cookies, Egg Soup, Blue Cheese Pretzels, and Chicken Puffs.  Buy your copy so we can live the Milk Bar Life together!

Annie

I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review.

Milk and Cookies

Today we are talking about my Momofuku Milk Bar obsession. Milk Bar is an incredible bakery in New York introduced to me last year by my oldest sis!
Last week the best little surprise was delivered to me. Okay so it wasn't really a surprise because there were problems with shipping and my sister had to tell me, but a tin of Momofuku's Milk Bar blueberry and cream cookies arrived for me! 
my tin of blueberry and creams!

I think I've mentioned a few times how much I love Milk Bar and their cookies. Anytime Claire comes home from New York she always comes bearing an assortment of Milk Bar cookies. Last time my parents went to NY they brought back the Milk Bar cookbook for me, and then last week Kathleen had cookies shipped to me for a little congrats present! 

Inside a Milk Bar bakery. image via pinterest. All other images via Milkbarstore.com
Milk Bar is the genius idea stirred up by its founder Christina Tosi. She used to work at Momofuku (famous ramen noodle bar) as the pasty chef and would come up with the most unusual but delicious desserts. Her pastries soon become a highlight to the restaurant they decided to let her break off and start her own Momofuku bakery.
Christina Tosi. The mastermind behind Milk Bar.
A year ago when in New York, Claire and her boyfriend couldn't wait to take us Milk Bar. I fell in love. Milk Bar's menu consists of cereal milk ice cream, crack pie, birthday cake truffles, compost cookies and more. Once my parents got me the cookbook I finally took a shot at making my own confetti cookies and blueberry and cream cookies. Tasted pretty close to the real thing let me tell ya! 
Crack Pie. The name explains itself. This corn syrup, sugary pie is so good you get addicted to it like crack.
The blueberry and cream cookies are without a doubt my favorite. The combination of flavors is amazing. The recipe isn't like a normal cookie recipe though. First you have to make the milk crumbs which makes up the "cream" part. The crumbs are made from milk powder and melted white chocolate.  After 8 minutes of mixing the dough, in goes the dried blueberries. After an hour of the dough being in the fridge, huge ice cream scoop size amounts of dough go into the oven to bake. 
Blueberry and Cream cookie tin!
All Milk Bar recipes are like this. Several ingredients and several steps go into recreating Tosi's masterpieces. They are so worth it though. 
Confetti cookies. They look like just regular funfetti cookies but I have actually made these and they are so much more!
Anytime I hear someone is traveling to New York I recommend Milk Bar. If you plan to travel to NYC soon you have to make a stop. If you can't make it, you can order almost all their desserts from their website. After I instagrammed my cookies, one of my good friends told me she instantly got on the website and ordered two tins of cookies to be delivered!
I will without a doubt have a Milk Bar cake as my wedding cake. 
Now that I've been to the bakery, had cookies shipped to me, baked from the cookbook, next all I want is to attend one of their cooking classes! I'm trying to make it happen!
My plan was to make the Milk bar birthday cake for my birthday, I didn't get around to it but Claire brought my birthday cake truffles home instead!

Now that I've shared all about Milk Bar, I hope you get why I love it so much! You can see all about their menu, locations, and products on their website here.

xo annie