Christina Tosi recipes (2024)

Since David Chang tapped Christina Tosi to become his pastry chef and later open Momof*cku Milk Bar, the chef has continued to surprise and delight us with her playful, sugar-laden creations. Betty Crocker on acid? Maybe. But we're not complaining.

Apr 19, 2018 3:27am

At her bakery, Christina Tosi is an unrepentant sugar-pusher of the first degree, with a trademark on the billion-calorie confection called Crack Pie, which is cripplingly sweet and as addictive as the name implies.

To make Cereal Milk, she soaks all the flavour out of supermarket cereal in vats of full-cream milk, then adds some sugar and throws the cereal away. It ends up as ice-cream and as a constituent ingredient of alcoholic milkshakes. Her Compost Cookies include pretzels and coffee grounds as if she's figured out a way to transfigure rubbish into real desserts. (And she has.)

But just four years ago, before she partnered with the chef David Chang and created Momof*cku Milk Bar, home of the aforementioned stoner-childhood pastry creations, Tosi was in professional limbo. She'd worked pastry chef positions at WD~50 and Bouley, two celebrated Manhattan restaurants, but found herself adrift. She tried the travelling-aimlessly thing, but it felt wrong – against her hyperactivity, her inherent fastidiousness – and she left the beaches of Thailand to return to New York.

There, oscillating about what to do, she began crafting HACCP plans – phonebook-thick technical manuals required of restaurants by new city laws to allow them to work with sous vide and other modern cooking techniques. Chang hired her to be an office girl to help out at Momof*cku (he'd just opened Ssäm Bar, his second restaurant.) She ran errands during the day and baked psychotically delicious, strange, Betty Crocker-on-acid things at night, which she'd bring into the office, or to one of the restaurants, for staff meals the following day.

Until that point, the Momof*cku restaurants had served no dessert unless it was something out of a freezer case. After a few months of steadily devouring her handiwork – and knowing her history in good kitchens – Chang ordered Tosi into service to make a dessert, anything, for dinner at Ssäm Bar. She started with very classic strawberry shortcakes and hasn't looked back.

She helped Ko, another sibling in the Momof*cku family (which also includes Seiobo in Sydney), to earn two Michelin stars with desserts that showed she could walk the highwire between the uptight, analytical, hydrocolloidal, quenelle-gel-soil-arranging style she'd learned at her previous places of employment and the gleeful, more-is-more, pass-me-the-chocolate-sauce style she'd soon be known for.

When she opened her first Milk Bar, in a former laundromat behind Ssäm Bar, the place was mobbed from morning till midnight. It helped make soft-serve trendy in New York (with oddball flavours such as salty pistachio, guava horchata and green apple-cheddar) and attracted a celebrity clientele, including the newsman Anderson Cooper and lifestyle magnate Martha Stewart.

Little more than a year later, Tosi took over a 1000-square-metre warehouse in Brooklyn and converted it to a commissary that now fuels five permanent Milk Bar locations and many pop-ups throughout the year. She published a book, Momof*cku Milk Bar, the source of the recipes printed here, which told her story and supplied readers with the recipes for all of her cultish desserts.

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Carrot layer cake

This towering layer cake takes all the best parts of carrot cake – a moist crumb, plenty of texture – and combines it with the ubiquitous cream cheese frosting that accompanies it, except here it becomes a layer of the cake itself. It's sweet, it's decadent and it's a little bit ridiculous – it's got Christina Tosi written all over it.

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Cereal Milk panna cotta

The Momof*cku empire's most famous creation after its pork buns might be Cereal Milk: milk that's strained off a bowl of toasted Corn Flakes, taking all the cereal's sweet-savoury flavour with it. One mouthful and you're transported to mornings spent watching cartoons and music videos in your pyjamas. Here the milk is used to flavour a silky panna cotta that's topped with more Corn Flakes. Genius.

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Banana cream pie

The secret to the success of this pie is using super ripe bananas - they give a much deeper flavour. Between the thick chocolate crust and gooey centre, this pie is a deliciously messy dessert, one that's best tackled in the company of loved ones.

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Compost Cookies

The name might not give you high hopes, but these cookies are a tasty mix of Tosi's favourite snacks – pretzels, chocolate chips, Graham crackers and potato chips – baked into one convenient package. Like many of her desserts, there's plenty going on in terms of texture, as well as a savoury counterpoint to all that sugar. Overlook the Compost Cookie at your own peril.

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Crack Pie

The name of this dessert (which Tosi has trademarked, by the way) says it all. Addictively sweet and so bad it's good, Crack Pie is one of those things that, once you've tried it, is hard to forget.

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Christina Tosi recipes (2024)

FAQs

Does Christina Tosi still own Milk Bar? ›

Christina Tosi (born 1981) is an American chef and cookbook author. She is founder and co-owner with Momof*cku of Milk Bar and serves as its chef and chief executive officer. Food & Wine magazine included her in their 2014 list of "Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink".

Does Christina Tosi have any Michelin stars? ›

As founder of the dessert program at Momof*cku, Christina helped Momof*cku Ko earn two stars from the Michelin Guide and Momof*cku Ssäm jump onto San Pellegrino's Top 100 Restaurants in the World list at number 31.

Did Christina Tosi attend culinary school? ›

Eventually, she graduated from James Madison University. After graduating, she moved to New York and enrolled in the French Culinary Institute's pastry arts program. On July 30, 2016, Tosi married New York City-based restaurateur Will Guidara.

Why is the Milk Bar so popular? ›

Famous for concocting unusual and truly unique desserts, including Cereal milk ice cream, the famous Milk Bar Pie (originally called “Crack Pie”), and a legendary sweet corn ice cream and compost cookie, Tosi brought a whimsy and creative nature to desserts and sweets that restaurants hadn't yet seen.

What is the Milk Bar controversy? ›

In a letter Tosi sent to the Milk Bar team, she explained that the company's only mission was to "spread joy and inspire celebration." The name references crack cocaine and the epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, which not only disproportionately affected Black communities and communities of color but also elicited a ...

Was Christina Tosi on Shark Tank? ›

Shark Tank (TV Series 2009– ) - Christina Tosi as Self - Founder: Milk Bar - IMDb.

Does Christina still work for Gordon Ramsay? ›

In 2015, she became the Corporate Executive Chef of Gordon Ramsay Restaurant Group. In 2016 and from 2018 onward, she has also returned to Hell's Kitchen as a Sous-chef. Since 2020, she has been the VP Culinary at Gordon Ramsay North America.

Who has 21 Michelin stars? ›

Alain Ducasse

What chef has 16 Michelin stars? ›

With an illustrious career spanning multiple decades and continents, Alléno has carved out a reputation as one of the world's foremost culinary innovators, earning an impressive 16 Michelin stars across his 17 international restaurants; not least of which, Pavyllon London, which recently earned its first star after ...

Is Christina Tosi still married? ›

Christina Tosi has a new little helper in the kitchen. The Milk Bar founder and former MasterChef Junior judge, 39, and her restaurateur husband Will Guidara welcomed daughter Francis "Frankie" Ray Guidara last month, her rep confirms to PEOPLE.

What type of chef is Christina Tosi? ›

A classically trained pastry chef who blends culinary technique with unexpectedly whimsical and nostalgic ingredients, Christina began her career working for a number of powerhouse fine-dining chefs including David Bouley, Caesar Ramirez, Thomas Keller, Wylie Dufresne, and Alex Stupak.

Does Christina Tosi have a restaurant? ›

Chef/Owner Milk Bar | Christina Tosi. First, a little bit about me. I majored in math and fell into baking. I was raised by strong women who taught me to be unapologetically intense and passionate about, well, anything and everything that fed my heart.

How did Christina Tosi get famous? ›

In 2005 Tosi was introduced to renowned chef David Chang, founder of Momof*cku restaurants. She worked for Chang's restaurant in business operations but she never gave up her love for baking. After creating Momof*cku's popular dessert menu Chang gave Tosi the seed money to open the first Milk Bar store in 2008.

Does Momof*cku still own milk bars? ›

Today, when the 36-year-old CEO and mastermind of Crack Pies and Compost Cookies isn't judging on Fox's MasterChef, she is busy expanding her profitable bakery chain. (Momof*cku still owns an undisclosed stake in Milk Bar, which operates separately.)

Why is a milk bar called a milk bar? ›

It was so called because milk bars were originally bars serving milk shakes: they were the equivalents of American soda fountains, and they were introduced to Australia between the wars, patterned after the US; they were pioneered by Greek immigrants. A milk bar and a deli are different things.

Who is the owner of Milkbarstore? ›

Christina Tosi is the rule-breaking, award-winning chef and founder of Milk Bar.

Who owns the Little Milk Bar? ›

Lindsay White is the owner of The Little Milk Bar and founder of the #dropthecover movement. A brand empowering breastfeeding moms everywhere. Giving you permission to feed your baby whenever and wherever you need to.

Who owns Tigers Milk Bar? ›

Tiger's Milk is a nutrition bar created and introduced in the 1960s by Plus Products owned by James and Arthur Ingoldsby. It was later acquired by Weider Nutrition in the 1980s. The brand is currently owned by McCormick & Company.

Who is the owner of the milk restaurant? ›

Let the good times roll

Investors, Mfundo and Mshayi Mbeki (the brothers behind Rands Cape Town, a popular open-air lounge-tshisa nyama in Khayelitsha), together with Milk owner Siphelo Jalivane have created a welcoming space where lasting memories are made.

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