Next to some recipes, you will see sidebars, or references to the hows and whys of a given technique or an ingredient used in the recipe. Recipes used beyond a single chapter—in recipes you can find elsewhere in this book—are also noted, to give you ideas, to help you find new ways to use your favorites. We’re setting you up real good.
“Setting yourself up for success” is a phrase we love to use seriously and sarcastically alike in the kitchen. When someone doesn’t wash the mixing bowl or leaves you without enough cornflakes to make cereal milk, they are not setting you up for success, and you let them know it. Loudly. But mostly we use it sarcastically, because we love being aware of one another and really value setting ourselves and each other up for a successful day in the kitchen.
To set yourself up at home, first decide what you want to accomplish. Are you making cookies for a bake sale or planning a fancy dinner party for later in the week, or do you just want to try out a few mother recipes and keep them in your fridge or freezer for a snack (or until you’re ready to master the art of the Cereal Milk Ice Cream Pie, or the Chocolate Malt Layer Cake)? Once you’ve determined that, make yourself a prep list. Organize your recipe(s) before you actually start. Baking can seem difficult when you try to do too much at once. Some recipes take a little longer to execute, but they’re well worth the commitment. Plan for this when you clock in.
We choose our ingredients for many different reasons—be it flavor, ease of use, or the result in a final recipe. Both Milk Bar and Momofuku in general have always been about in-your-face flavor. We rarely make anything that is soft, gentle, or quiet. It’s almost always loud.
Here are the whys and why nots of every ingredient, along with a lot of baking tips and tricks of the trade. This isn’t a throwaway section, a snooze fest. Educate yourself and read on. Can’t find an ingredient at your local grocery store or specialty food mart? Never underestimate the power of the internet.
baking powder and baking soda
We do pretty classic American baking, so we stick to good ol’ baking powder and baking soda to give our cookies and cakes a little bit of lift. We use them in our cookies to help control spread, to help them brown, and to keep them balanced in flavor and texture. We like an aerated cookie that’s crispy on the outside and fudgy in the center. We use double-acting baking powder exclusively. Any brand of baking soda will do—just make sure you don’t use the baking soda that you keep in the refrigerator to soak up all those stinky smells (unless, of course, you like your blueberry cookies to taste like leftover Indian food).
butter
We love butter at Milk Bar. I grew up with a mother who used only margarine, which is tragic, because butter makes or breaks the quality of a baked good. We spend a lot of money on really good butter, and we’ve never changed the kind we use. Plugrá is a European-style butter made from cultured dairy, which makes it that much tastier. Its butterfat content is 82 percent (the average stick of grocery store butter is 80 to 81 percent), and it’s very yellow. So, if your cookies turn out pale, we’ll all know you cheated. Always opt for unsalted butter, so you can control the amount of salt in your baked goods.
chocolate
Valrhona is a delicious, dependable chocolate, whether you are using it for chocolate work or in baking. The first real pastry chef I ever worked for used Valrhona. He swore by it, and I followed suit. We use fèves or pistoles (discs or chips) of this fancy chocolate because they’re easier to measure, portion, and melt down than the large gold-bar-like slabs of gourmet chocolate you often see.
I like Valrhona’s 72% Araguani chocolate the most. It’s a really nice dark chocolate—not too bitter, with slight floral notes that allow you to do more delicate things with it if need be, but it also bakes off with taste and integrity, letting everyone know it’s a high-quality chocolate. The 55% Valrhona is a great semisweet chocolate; it’s not too milky, and it’s not too sweet. I feel the same way about the versatility of Valrhona’s white chocolate; it’s not too cloying, and it doesn’t taste too much like cocoa butter or vanilla, as many white chocolates do.
chocolate chips, mini
We use Barry Callebaut semisweet mini chocolate chips. They are the perfect size and flavor. We always use these tiny chips because they give you a little chocolate chip in every bite of any cookie or cake they’re used in.
citric acid
You can find citric acid marketed as sour salt in the spice aisle at many grocery stores. We use citric acid most often to enhance the flavor of our seasonal recipes. It’s not hard to find, so please don’t skip it. Though you can use lemon or lime juice for tartness in its place, citric acid doesn’t impart any flavor and it doesn’t add liquid to the recipe—its greatest allure.
cocoa powder
Don’t mess around with cocoa powder. We use Valrhona brand. It is a Dutch-processed, or alkalized, unsweetened cocoa powder, meaning it has been treated with an alkali to neutralize its acidity. If you are going to use grocery store cocoa powder, don’t expect your chocolate desserts to look or taste as dark and fudgy as ours.
eggs
Every egg that we call for in this cookbook is a large egg. We get them from a nearby Pennsylvania Dutch farm. Find fresh eggs from a local farm if possible; just remember that their shells are typically thinner than that of your average grocery store egg—so be careful, or strain your eggs through a fine-mesh sieve once cracked to be sure no shards of shell remain. Save extra yolks or whites—there are plenty of recipes that call for one or the other.
extracts and food coloring
One of the first things I learned at wd~50 is that Wylie hates food extracts (and food coloring). He believes people rely on them as crutches, which can be true, especially on the savory side. However, extracts are much more common in the pastry field. Because of working with Wylie, I always feel like I have to explain myself twenty times, so here goes: At Milk Bar, we don’t use extracts (or food coloring) excessively, and we certainly don’t use them as a crutch. When we use them, it’s always for a really good reason, usually just to enhance a flavor that we’ve already put into something.
Peppermint extract (used in our mint cheesecake and mint glaze) provides 100 percent peppermint flavor; fresh mint doesn’t give you the same cooling, deep mint flavor as the extract. Fresh mint also oxidizes, turning brown when you bake it. Of course, Wylie would probably say something like, “You should figure out a way to make it green with spinach juice.” But spinach-juice cheesecake just doesn’t sound as good. Hope I didn’t let you down, chef.
Bananas are not yellow when they are cooked down and used in a cake or cream—or ice cream—they are brown. And nobody wants to eat a brown cake, cream, or ice cream. We don’t use an ungodly amount of food coloring; and if you don’t want to use it at all at home, you don’t have to. But guess what? You are going to be face-to-face with a brown banana cream pie or banana cake, and that’s a fact.
feuilletine
Feuilletine, French in origin, is tiny flakes of impossibly thin, seemingly toasted crepe bits. We use Cacao Barry feuilletine in the nut crunch recipes; it is a natural partner to nut-based pastes. Feuilletine is an ingredient worth seeking out (in specialty baking stores or at amazon.com) and having in your kitchen because of its insane, one-of-a-kind texture. There is really no substitution for it; cornflakes or Rice Krispies do not produce the same results.
One thing to note about feuilletine: it gets soggy if you put it in a liquid that isn’t 100-percent fat-based—enter Dave Chang, who likes to stumble into the pastry kitchen, take a scoop of feuilletine, pour milk over it, and inhale it in seconds, just before it turns to mush.
flour
Originally we developed all of the Milk Bar recipes using generic all-purpose flour. And, in fact, all of the recipes in this book were tested with regular all-purpose. That said, when we could afford to do so, we upgraded to better stuff. So now our “all-purpose” flour is actually King Arthur Bread Flour. The choice is yours. We tried a lot of different va
rieties of King Arthur flours in our recipes, but we really loved the results with their bread flour best.
Because our cookies have such a high butter ratio, we like the extra protein content of bread flour to help bind them together. I would never have guessed that the high protein content would make such a difference, but it does. It’s one of those secrets. Only thing is, when making the cookies, you must be vigilant about not overmixing the dough. If you mix it even a little too long after adding the flour, the protein in the flour will start to develop gluten and your finished product will resemble a tough bread ball, not a tender buttery cookie.
For cake flour, we’ve never been able to find one that we like better than Purasnow. We’ve tried a few different “pastry” flours, and those will work, but we really like the way that the General Mills cake flour comes out in our recipes. There is something about it that gives the cakes an undeniable flavor and an all-American sponginess. It’s available in grocery stores. (Do not use self-rising cake flour.)
freeze-dried corn
Get regular freeze-dried corn from Whole Foods, amazon.com, or justtomatoes.com. They all offer an organic version, but it’s not the same in flavor or color. We grind the corn down to a powder in the blender before we use it, so do the same in your kitchen. Make sure you store it in an airtight container, because otherwise moisture will get to it, and it will make you very sad.
fruit purees and juices
You can purchase fruit purees or you can buy whole seasonal fresh fruit and make a puree at home. I don’t consider purchasing already pureed fruit cheating, especially if you want to make White Peach Sorbet in the dead of winter. Passion fruit puree in particular is definitely worth sourcing; trying to make it at home will test your endurance and nerves. It is also cheaper to buy it already processed.
There are several options when it comes to sourcing purees; my favorite, as always, is amazon.com. We use Boiron and Capfruit, both widely distributed. Figure out what brand of puree you like best and go for it.
If you choose to make fruit purees at home, it is essential that you use the ripest fruit possible; if you don’t, there is no way the final result will taste good. There are a few things, though, that you will have to make from scratch. Concord grape juice, for the PB & J Pie, is one of them. Buying the sugary commercial stuff is not an option; you can’t make that concession.
Never use fruit juice or fruit nectar in place of a puree. The solids and water contents are different and the recipe will not come out the same.
gelatin
I was taught to use sheet gelatin in culinary school because it’s easier to store, measure, bloom (or soften), and melt, so that’s what we use in our kitchen. Gelita Silver Strength gelatin sheets are the common currency in pastry and savory kitchens in NYC. However, powdered gelatin can be substituted for sheets in every case, and every recipe in this book that calls for gelatin includes the conversion. You will by no means sacrifice quality if you use powdered gelatin. Whatever you use, though, you must bloom the gelatin correctly, or your results will definitely suffer. Follow the instructions.
glucose
Glucose is an invert sugar that we use in many recipes. We use it in liquids to add body and reduce the chance of crystallization. We use it in ice creams to keep them soft and smooth, even after they’ve been in the freezer for a while. We use it to give our cookies their signature fudgy centers and crispy edges, and it also increases their shelf life. We use it in ganache to keep it smooth, adding viscosity and fullness and helping to bond the ingredients. So many glorious things happen through the wonder and beauty of glucose.
You can substitute half the amount of light corn syrup for the glucose in these recipes, but be forewarned that corn syrup is looser and way sweeter; it will get you close, but the end result won’t have exactly the same flavor or consistency as what we make in our kitchen. Glucose syrup is easily found on amazon.com. Go ahead and order a bucket. You’re worth it.
graham crumbs
Graham crumbs are a brilliant invention of the graham cracker manufacturers. They took all of their broken graham cracker bits that they couldn’t sell whole and made their own market for them, which I think is genius. I often wonder whether they were also the geniuses behind the whole cheesecake-must-have-a-graham-crust phenomenon. We prefer Keebler graham crumbs.
heavy cream
When we call for heavy cream, there is no substitution. It is one of the key ingredients of crack pie. We use it in our Graham Crust. We use it in our ganache recipes. Heavy cream has ridiculously cool emulsifying properties. You can use cold heavy cream to bind any dairy-based product that has broken or been overwhipped. If you are making Banana Cream, for example, and you walk away from your mixer while whipping the cream, only to return to find stiff peaks where soft peaks should be, all you have to do is gently stir a small amount of cold heavy cream into the mix, and it will magically turn the hard peaks back into beautiful, soft, billowy peaks.
Get your heavy cream from a local farmer if possible. Milk Thistle can’t keep up with the amount of heavy cream we go through in a week, but their product is a delicious one that we would always use if we could. Just be sure to shake that farm-fresh cream well before using.
marshmallows
We use Kraft mini marshmallows. We use mini marshmallows for the same reason we use mini chocolate chips: to get a little bit in every bite. If you only have large marshmallows, you can cut them up, but that’s a really big pain in the butt.
milk
Milk Bar. Clearly, a lot of our stuff is dairy-based. I was raised on skim milk by a mother who was very concerned about my cholesterol level. That is probably why I rarely drank milk growing up. In fact, I only had it when it was dousing Lucky Charms. As an adult, I refuse to use skim milk in any of my recipes and I scoff at the idea of 2%. All of our recipes are designed around whole milk. If you cut out the fat, you are going to cut out the flavor.
We love supporting our favorite local organic farmer, Dante Hess at Milk Thistle farms in Ghent, New York. If you can’t find a local dairy, it’s OK to use store-bought milk—just make sure it’s whole.
milk powder
Do not use milk powder to make milk. I repeat: do not add water and stir; it’s gross. Trust me, my dad used to try to make me drink milk made from milk powder when I was little.
Instead, think of milk powder as MSG for bakers. MSG doesn’t taste like anything; it just makes everything taste better. Milk powder works in the same way. We use it in recipes because it has an amazing way of adding a terrific baseline flavor. We also use it to increase the milk solid content in ice creams, which results in a milkier, denser, and silkier ice cream. I also like what it does in certain baking recipes. For example, it adds chewiness when you put it in a cookie.
We do use milk powder for its stand-alone flavor in our milk crumbs. We use white chocolate in the recipe to give it a sweeter, milkier taste, but the milk powder is what really determines the flavor.
miscellaneous dairy
We call for a lot of different dairy products in this cookbook—things like yogurt, sour cream, and goat cheese. But we don’t get too fancy in our kitchen with these, because we spend so much money on expensive butter and whole milk. You can certainly use an artisanal sour cream or yogurt to support your local economy. Whatever you buy, just make sure to get the full-fat option.
I really love sour cream. Sour cream with brown sugar was one of my favorite snacks as a kid. Its fat content is similar to that of heavy cream, so you can paddle it, and it will come to soft or heavy peaks. I like Friendship sour cream just fine.
nonstick cooking spray
There are lots of approaches to greasing pans. My grandmother and mother save butter papers and use the residual butter on them to grease pans. In our kitchen, we use Pam spray for everything, because it is easy and convenient.
nuts
My mom never puts nuts in anything, but somehow she magically has these creepy bags of nuts that sit in her
pantry for God knows how long. They’re usually stale and sometimes rancid. Make sure the nuts in your kitchen have not gone the same way! A rancid nut probably won’t kill you, but it will make a huge difference in the quality of your food. You should always store nuts in the fridge if you don’t think you are going to use them right away, and you should definitely taste them before you make anything with them.
We use Bazzini brand nuts. If you can get pieces instead of whole, they’re usually cheaper, and if you’re going to use them for a brittle, you’re going to break them down, anyway. We get our nuts skinned and blanched, so there isn’t any of that weird brown skin on them.
nut pastes and butters
Nut pastes and butters aren’t cheap. And the more you spend on them, the better the quality you’ll get. Pistachio and hazelnut pastes typically have a percentage of sugar added to them, which we love. Almond butter does not. Any specialty cooking or baking store should have a supply, or there’s always the internet. We use Bazzini brand almond butter, Valrhona hazelnut paste, Skippy peanut butter, and Agrimontana pistachio paste.
oats
We keep it classic with Old-Fashioned Quaker Oats. They are easy to find in the grocery store; just don’t accidentally buy instant or quick-cooking oats. We go through oats very quickly, but you probably won’t go through the whole container at once. So make sure you store any that you have left over in an airtight container or a zip-top plastic bag to prevent little bugs, like weevils, from trying to crawl in and snack on them.
oil
We use grapeseed oil in all of our baking. It is a little more viscous than most vegetable oils, it doesn’t impart any flavor, and it has an amazing emulsifying quality. I could watch it emulsify liquid in fat forever. If you have canola oil in-house, though, feel free to use that; just don’t use oil that’s so viscous it barely pours, or oil that is water-thin.
pectin
We use pectin, specifically pectin NH, a powdered pectin often used in fruit- and water-based pastry glazes; it’s easily obtained online. Pectin NH gels quickly with liquids and does not impart any flavor, color, or fogginess in the process. It gives a much better consistency than what you get setting something with gelatin, which makes something jiggly like Jell-O. When using pectin, we always mix it with a portion of the sugar and salt from the recipe so it doesn’t clump up when we whisk in the liquid. Pectin must be brought to a boil and simmered for a minimum of 2 minutes to fully hydrate and activate it in the liquid it is gelling.
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