Summary
A mind-blowing collection of more than 100 new cookie recipes and inspiration to create your own masterpieces, from the founder of Milk Bar, host of Bake Squad , and inventor of the Compost Cookie.
In All About Cookies , Christina Tosi brings us into a cookie wonderland,with recipes from and inspired by Milk Bar's fan favorites.No cookie form is left unturned, from classic crispies to sandies, sammies, chewies, bars, and even no-bakes. She remixesan old classic into themarbled chocolate s'more cookie, takes us on a flavor journey with blueberry-and-corn bars, and introduces us to a new favoritewith the jelly-donut cookie sandwich.
And all that creativity is meant to rub off- Through dozens of recipes, she showsyouhow to mix and match ideas, flavors, and textures toturnyou into a cookie wizard. Whether you're swappingoutpeanut butter for marshmallow fluff or adding Milk Bar's famous BirthdayCrumbsto a recipe, this cookbook will reimagine the cookie gamefornew bakers and pros alike. All About Cookies will have you rushing to preheat your oven and push your culinary boundaries to the next level.
Author Notes
Christina Tosi is the two-time James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Milk Bar, with locations in New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Boston, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C. She was also a judge on Fox's MasterChef Junior series, was featured on the hit Netflix docu-series Chef's Table- Pastry, and hosts the Netflix series Bake Squad. She is the author of Momofuku Milk Bar, Milk Bar Life, All About Cake, Milk Bar- Kids Only, Dessert Can Save the World, and, for children, Every Cake Has a Story.
Publisher's Weekly Review
"Cookies were the secret to living life on my own terms," writes Tosi (Dessert Can Save the World), the James Beard Award--winning founder of the Milk Bar bakery chain, in this delectable collection. The offerings--compost animal crackers, cereal milk cream soda cookies, and chewy chocolate banana sammies are among the 100-plus recipes--reinterpret Milk Bar classics and burst with flavor. Most of these treats are decadently sweet, as evidenced by the grasshopper pie bars, which have a fudgy brownie base, layers of mint cheesecake, and a mint glaze made from white chocolate chips. Tosi gets creative with the baking process: in the no-bake and low-bake chapter, there's a recipe for chocolate chip cookies made in an air fryer. She also encourages experimentation, including a simple glaze formula that incorporates pantry items such as orange juice, grape jelly, or maple syrup. This off-beat cornucopia of baked goods will appeal to fans of Tosi's unique combinations and those who crave the ultimate sugar high. (Nov.)
Library Journal Review
Tosi (All About Cake), founder of cookie-laden Milk Bar, brings readers a recipe book that is like no other. She is known for her extraordinary flavors and funky combinations, and does not disappoint here. In the introduction, she talks about her previous books as being the "past"; this one is her "present." There is nothing in this book that even an experienced baker has likely seen before. Her cookies include using toasted Ritz crackers filled with something yummy and iced with something luscious. Another offering: Triscuit bars that contain ground crackers and are then formed to look like Triscuits again. Bar cookies, sandwich cookies, crunchy, chewy beautiful and homely cookies are also included. Her recipes require a bit of baking knowledge and a budget that will absorb the cost of French butter and freeze-dried corn among other ingredients. Adding to the effect, the photos of the cookies are beautiful, the ones of the professional kitchen are inspirational, and the introductions to each recipe are encouraging. VERDICT A good addition to any comprehensive baking collection (as both a guide and an enjoyable read).--Danise Hoover
Excerpts
Pep Talk In the wild, wonderful world of dessert, possibilities are endless when you turn on the oven: crimped pie crusts when the season gives you bushels of fruit, layers of cake (unfrosted on the sides, obvi) when there's a celebration nigh. But what about all the days in between? Cookies are what I always choose. Cookies are where it all started for me. Cookies were my first invitation into the kitchen. Cookies were the thing that inspired my first apron, my first step stool, my first mess, and, of course, my first, and perhaps greatest, food obsession. When I was a kid, I passed on dreams of being the first female president or a prized veterinarian to dream about opening Cookies, Cookies, Cookies, my not-so-cleverly-named bakery. Cookies made my grandmothers my heroes, my best friends. Cookies were my safe place in the world in my awkward teenage years. Cookies were the secret to living life on my terms. Decades later, not a single thing has changed. Once I learned to follow a recipe, I made batch after batch, and then batch after batch after ditching the recipe. I experimented, asking myself, "What if I added twice the sugar? Half the flour? Double the baking soda?" As you might imagine, there were some good batches, but mostly a lot of really, really bad batches. My poor mother, Greta, would remark every time, "Ooooh. Yum!" She nibbled through each disaster after a long day's work with a big, proud smile. I kept at it. I was happiest when my head was down, when I was lost in my own imagination, a wooden spoon and a beat-up bowl ready for magic to be made. I took the leap to move to New York City, hone my skills, and sharpen my craft--and find direction in my life. I worked with nearly every pastry form and occupation my new home had to offer: breads, crème pâtissière, chibousts, croissants, macarons, and mignardises, plated desserts aplenty, sorbets, sundaes, soufflés, and more. I traversed every possible dessert only to find the thing I was looking for was the very thing I already knew: The answer was cookies. It's been over twelve years since I opened Milk Bar, going from home baking twelve cookies to a batch, to industrial sheet pans yielding forty-eight cookies per bake, to now a cookie factory line that runs tens of thousands of cookies at a time. And I'm STILL just getting started. But along the way it's always been important to refill the creativity well. Milk Bar has a roster of triedand-trues that we've made for years: the cornflakechocolate chip-marshmallow cookie, the compost, the confetti, the corn, the chocolate-chocolate, the blueberry and cream. If you've baked from my other books, you know my cookie past . . . you may know some of the classics from my childhood, like my mom's famous The Gretas, or my Grandma's Oatmeal Cookies. But the recipes that lie ahead of you are from my cookie present. I've gone deep into our bag of tricks, brushed up on baking science, even reinvented a few of the Milk Bar classics or some of our favorite flavor stories. And what's come out is a collection of brand-new cookie recipes, ideas, and even cookie forms that I have never been more excited about. For those of you who think a cookie is just a cookie, and all cookie cookbooks are the same, welcome, my friend, to our crazy, amazing love affair with the most unsung hero of pastry. Bake a few batches with me and, I promise, you'll never look at cookies the same way again. Excerpted from All about Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book by Christina Tosi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
