Momofuku Milk Bar
Page 9
milk crumb
MAKES ABOUT 260 G (2¼ CUPS)
40 g milk powder
[½ cup]
40 g flour
[¼ cup]
12 g cornstarch
[2 tablespoons]
25 g sugar
[2 tablespoons]
2 g kosher salt
[½ teaspoon]
55 g butter, melted
[4 tablespoons (½ stick)]
20 g milk powder
[¼ cup]
90 g white chocolate, melted
[3 ounces]
Elsewhere in this book: Milk crumbs are used in the White Peach Sorbet dessert.
1. Heat the oven to 250°F.
2. Combine the 40 g (½ cup) milk powder, the flour, cornstarch, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Toss with your hands to mix. Add the melted butter and toss, using a spatula, until the mixture starts to come together and form small clusters.
3. Spread the clusters on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes. The crumbs should be sandy at that point, and your kitchen should smell like buttery heaven. Cool the crumbs completely.
4. Crumble any milk crumb clusters that are larger than ½ inch in diameter, and put the crumbs in a medium bowl. Add the 20 g (¼ cup) milk powder and toss together until it is evenly distributed throughout the mixture.
5. Pour the white chocolate over the crumbs and toss until your clusters are enrobed. Then continue tossing them every 5 minutes until the white chocolate hardens and the clusters are no longer sticky. The crumbs will keep in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer for up to 1 month.
berry milk crumb
MAKES ABOUT 320 G (2½ CUPS)
Freeze-dried fruit! The range of delicious freeze-dried fruits and veggies can make your world of crumb possibilities seem endless. We grind down freeze-dried fruits and veggies into a powder in a blender or food processor and then toss them with milk crumbs to give pops of new flavor to an old crumb. We adjust the moisture with butter or white chocolate if necessary, based on the ingredients in the mix and our end goal.
1 recipe Milk Crumb
40 g freeze-dried cherry powder
[½ cup]
20 g freeze-dried blueberry powder
[¼ cup]
0.5 g kosher salt
[⅛ teaspoon]
Toss the milk crumbs with the berry powders and salt in a medium bowl until all of the crumbs are an evenly speckled red and blue, coated in the berry powder. The crumbs will keep in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer for up to 1 month.
malted milk crumb
MAKES ABOUT 375 G (2½ CUPS)
1 recipe Milk Crumb
60 g Ovaltine, malt flavor
[¾ cup]
90 g white chocolate, melted
[3 ounces]
Elsewhere in this book: Malted milk crumbs are used in the Chocolate Malt Layer Cake.
1. Toss the milk crumbs with the Ovaltine malt powder in a medium bowl until all of the crumbs are a light brown.
2. Pour the white chocolate over the crumbs and continue tossing until all of the clusters are enrobed. Then continue tossing them every 5 minutes until the white chocolate hardens and the clusters are no longer sticky. (The result will be just like the original milk crumb, but with a cheetah-like spotting of light brown malt powder.) The crumbs will keep in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer for up to 1 month.
chocolate crumb
MAKES ABOUT 350 G (2½ CUPS)
105 g flour
[¼ cup]
4 g cornstarch
[1 teaspoon]
100 g sugar
[½ cup]
65 g cocoa powder, preferably
[¼ cup Valrhona]
4 g kosher salt
[1 teaspoon]
85 g butter, melted
[6 tablespoons]
1. Heat the oven to 300°F.
2. Combine the flour, cornstarch, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and paddle on low speed until mixed.
3. Add the butter and paddle on low speed until the mixture starts to come together in small clusters.
4. Spread the clusters on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan. Bake for 20 minutes, breaking them up occasionally. The crumbs should still be slightly moist to the touch at that point; they will dry and harden as they cool.
5. Let the crumbs cool completely before using in a recipe or eating. Stored in an airtight container, they will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.
birthday cake crumb
MAKES ABOUT 275 G (2¼ CUPS)
What’s better than box cake, you might ask? Nothing, actually. All I really want for breakfast, lunch, or dinner is box cake and its amazing wealth of by-products. I typically allow this 24-hour splurge only on my birthday.
The one thing that always eluded me, though, was how the hell do they get box cake to taste like that?! I have made coffee cake, soup, cookies, clusters, and cereal out of it. So we undertook the recipe development task of re-creating my favorite, and the ultimate birthday box cake, Funfetti, from scratch.
It took us four months to get there. And we still don’t make our own rainbow sprinkles (which Wylie Dufresne calls “cheating”). But I couldn’t be happier with the results: the crumbs, Birthday Cake, Birthday Cake Frosting, and Confetti Cookies. My dream come true.
100 g granulated sugar
[½ cup]
25 g light brown sugar
[1½ tablespoons tightly packed]
90 g cake flour
[¾ cup]
2 g baking powder
[½ teaspoon]
2 g kosher salt
[½ teaspoon]
20 g rainbow sprinkles
[2 tablespoons]
40 g grapeseed oil
[¼ cup]
12 g clear vanilla extract
[1 tablespoon]
1. Heat the oven to 300°F.
2. Combine the sugars, flour, baking powder, salt, and sprinkles in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed until well combined.
3. Add the oil and vanilla and paddle again to distribute. The wet ingredients will act as glue to help the dry ingredients form small clusters; continue paddling until that happens.
4. Spread the clusters on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan. Bake for 20 minutes, breaking them up occasionally. The crumbs should still be slightly moist to the touch; they will dry and harden as they cool.
5. Let the crumbs cool completely before using in a recipe or scarfing by the handful. Stored in an airtight container, the crumbs will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.
pie crumb
MAKES ABOUT 350 G (2¾ CUPS)
These crumbs give all the flavor and none of the fuss of a traditional pie crust.
240 g flour
[1½ cups]
18 g sugar
[2 tablespoons]
3 g kosher salt
[¾ teaspoon]
115 g butter, melted
[8 tablespoons (1 stick)]
20 g water
[1½ tablespoons]
Elsewhere in this book: Pie crumbs are used in the Apple Pie Layer Cake.
1. Heat the oven to 350°F.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and paddle on low speed until well mixed.
3. Add the butter and water and paddle on low speed until the mixture starts to come together in small clusters.
4. Spread the clusters on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan. Bake for 25 minutes, breaking them up occasionally. The crumbs should be golden brown and still slightly moist to the touch at that point; they will dry and harden as they cool.
5. Let the crumbs cool completely before using in a recipe or eating. Stored in an airtight container, the crumbs will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or 1 m
onth in the fridge or freezer.
blueberry & cream cookies
MAKES 12 TO 17 COOKIES
After the milk crumb phenomenon in the kitchen, we had to find a mainstream use for it, rather than just hiding it under some ice cream. It needed its moment in the sun. So I brainstormed. A peaches-and-cream cookie was my original thought. Momofuku does mean “lucky peach” in Japanese, after all. But I decided we needed something that would hit home even more for guests.
Did you know dried blueberries existed? I didn’t, until I surveyed Whole Foods’ dried fruit selection for a dried peach alternative. The clouds parted, and it was clear. We needed a blueberry-and-cream cookie, reminiscent of a blueberry muffin top (the best part of the muffin).
225 g butter, at room temperature
[16 tablespoons (2 sticks)]
150 g granulated sugar
[¾ cup]
150 g light brown sugar
[¼ cup tightly packed]
100 g glucose
[¼ cup]
2 eggs
320 g flour
[2 cups]
2 g baking powder
[½ teaspoon]
1.5 g baking soda
[¼ teaspoon]
6 g kosher salt
[1½ teaspoons]
½ recipe Milk Crumb
130 g dried blueberries
[¾ cup]
You can substitute Berry Milk Crumb for the milk crumbs to make the cookies more fruity. In a pinch, substitute 35 g (2 tablespoons) corn syrup for the glucose.
1. Combine the butter, sugars, and glucose in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the eggs, and beat for 7 to 8 minutes. (See notes on this process.)
2. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. (Do not walk away from the machine during this step, or you will risk overmixing the dough.) Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
3. Still on low speed, add the milk crumbs and mix until they’re incorporated, no more than 30 seconds. Chase the milk crumbs with the dried blueberries, mixing them in for 30 seconds.
4. Using a 2¾-ounce ice cream scoop (or a ⅓-cup measure), portion out the dough onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Pat the tops of the cookie dough domes flat. Wrap the sheet pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. Do not bake your cookies from room temperature—they will not bake properly.
5. Heat the oven to 350°F.
6. Arrange the chilled dough a minimum of 4 inches apart on parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pans. Bake for 18 minutes. The cookies will puff, crackle, and spread. After 18 minutes, they should be very faintly browned on the edges yet still bright yellow in the center; give them an extra minute or so if that’s not the case.
7. Cool the cookies completely on the sheet pans before transferring to a plate or to an airtight container for storage. At room temp, the cookies will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer, they will keep for 1 month.
pistachio layer cake
MAKES 1 (6-INCH) LAYER CAKE, 5 TO 6 INCHES TALL; SERVES 6 TO 8
This cake was a bestseller at Milk Bar right off the bat. If you’ve had it, chances are you were hooked at first bite. Though the recipe calls for a few things that you’ll have to source aside from your normal pantry ingredients, remember that amazon.com can be the love of your life too, and that this cake is well worth the effort.
1 recipe Pistachio Cake
65 g pistachio oil
[⅓ cup]
1 recipe Lemon Curd
½ recipe Milk Crumb
1 recipe Pistachio Frosting
special equipment
1 (6-inch) cake ring
2 strips acetate, each 3 inches wide and 20 inches long
Grapeseed oil can be substituted for the pistachio oil, but part of the toasted-pistachio depth of flavor will be lost.
1. Put a piece of parchment or a Silpat on the counter. Invert the cake onto it and peel off the parchment or Silpat from the bottom of the cake. Use the cake ring to stamp out 2 circles from the cake. These are your top 2 cake layers. The remaining cake “scrap” will come together to make the bottom layer of the cake.
layer 1, the bottom
2. Clean the cake ring and place it in the center of a sheet pan lined with clean parchment or a Silpat. Use 1 strip of acetate to line the inside of the cake ring.
3. Put the cake scraps inside the ring and use the back of your hand to tamp the scraps together into a flat even layer.
4. Dunk a pastry brush in the pistachio oil and give the layer of cake a good, healthy bath of half of the oil.
5. Use the back of a spoon to spread half of the lemon curd in an even layer over the cake.
6. Sprinkle one-third of the milk crumbs evenly over the lemon curd. Use the back of your hand to anchor them in place.
7. Use the back of a spoon to spread one-third of the pistachio frosting as evenly as possible over the crumbs.
layer 2, the middle
8. With your index finger, gently tuck the second strip of acetate between the cake ring and the top ¼ inch of the first strip of acetate, so that you have a clear ring of acetate 5 to 6 inches tall—high enough to support the height of the finished cake. Set a cake round on top of the frosting, and repeat the process for layer 1 (if 1 of your 2 cake rounds is jankier than the other, use it here in the middle and save the prettier one for the top).
layer 3, the top
9. Nestle the remaining cake round into the frosting. Cover the top of the cake with the remaining frosting. Give it volume and swirls, or do as we do and opt for a perfectly flat top. Garnish the frosting with the remaining milk crumbs.
10. Transfer the sheet pan to the freezer and freeze for a minimum of 12 hours to set the cake and filling. The cake will keep in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
11. At least 3 hours before you are ready to serve the cake, pull the sheet pan out of the freezer and, using your fingers and thumbs, pop the cake out of the cake ring. Gently peel off the acetate, and transfer the cake to a platter or cake stand. Let it defrost in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours (wrapped well in plastic, the cake can be refrigerated for up to 5 days).
12. Slice the cake into wedges and serve.
pistachio cake
MAKES 1 QUARTER SHEET PAN CAKE
190 g pistachio paste
[¼ cup]
75 g glucose
[3 tablespoons]
6 egg whites
280 g confectioners’ sugar
[1¾ cups]
110 g blanched almond flour
[1¼ cups]
75 g pistachio oil
[½ cup]
55 g heavy cream
[¼ cup]
160 g flour
[1 cup]
6 g baking powder
[1½ teaspoons]
6 g kosher salt
[1½ teaspoons]
Pam or other nonstick cooking spray (optional)
In a pinch, substitute 35 g (2 tablespoons) corn syrup for the glucose.
If you substitute 150 g (1½ cups) blanched almond flour for the flour, this becomes a gluten-free cake! Almond flour can be found online, at Whole Foods, or you can make it yourself: In a food processor, grind blanched almonds down to a powder!
Grapeseed oil can be subbed for the pistachio oil, but part of the toasted-pistachio depth of flavor will be lost.
1. Heat the oven to 350°F.
2. Combine the pistachio paste and glucose in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-low for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture turns into a sticky green paste. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
3. On low speed, add the egg whites one at a time, being careful not to add the next egg white until the previous one is completely incorporated. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bo
wl with a spatula after every 2 to 3 egg whites. Once all of the egg whites have been incorporated, you will have a snotty green soup in your mixing bowl. Right on.
4. Add the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour and, on low speed, paddle them in for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture thickens. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
5. Stream in the pistachio oil and heavy cream and paddle on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
6. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and paddle on low for 2 to 3 minutes, until the batter is super-smooth and slightly more viscous than your average American box cake batter.
7. Pam-spray a quarter sheet pan and line it with parchment, or just line the pan with a Silpat. Using a spatula, spread the cake batter in an even layer in the pan. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes. The cake will rise and puff, doubling in size. (This cake will become spongy, unlike any of our butter-based cakes, as it has so many egg whites in it.) At 20 minutes, gently poke the edge of the cake with your finger: the cake should bounce back (like said sponge), and it should be slightly golden brown on the sides and pulling away from the sides of the pan ever so slightly. Leave the cake in the oven for an extra 1 to 2 minutes if it doesn’t pass these tests.