I have seen Christina Tosi on at least 3 different cooking shows, but I’ve never had a fresh cookie from Milk Bar, only the packaged cookies that I got from the grocery store. So I thought that the best way to get familiar with Milk Bar would be to order freshly made cookies to be shipped to me.
I was so excited because they were packaged in a very nice Milk Bar tin. I could have ordered a smaller amount, but to be honest I wanted the bigger tin, so I ordered more cookies. Too many cookies really, I had to give a lot of them away. Plus, the cookie flavors I chose have been hits for so long that the recipes for them are actually in Tosi’s first cookbook and not the new one, so my idea of replicating the real Milk Bar cookies with her new book wasn’t going to work out. I suppose all that delicious research didn’t matter that much, but it sure was fun.
Milk Bar is known for their cereal milk ice cream and other cereal milk treats. I was never crazy about cereal milk, though, as a kid I ate the cereal and poured the milk out afterward, and I still do. I remember my father making me drink the cereal milk when we were on camping trips because he didn’t want to put milk in the trailer’s septic tank or whatever. I hated that overly sweet flavor, but these are the sacrifices you make when you want Sugar Smacks on the road.
Tosi doles out more than 100 dreamy concoctions in her fourth cookbook, All About Cookies, from French Toast Cookies to Strawberry-Pretzel Ice Cream bars, and if my early years had signature flavors, she somehow found them. It’s like she saw me putting a cookie in my Scooby Doo lunch box in 1980 and then re-created that same cookie in 2022. Here’s how my recipe testing went:
Chipless Wonders: I can’t even believe I made a cookie without chocolate, or coconut, or some other kind of add-in. It feels weird and unfinished. However this was such a great recipe that it won me over! The cookies were thick, with a sweet confectionary taste from the milk powder. It almost tasted like a cookie made from cake mix. I didn’t have a medium-sized scoop, so I used an ice-cream scoop, and the batter made 6 cookies that baked beautifully and evenly, measuring 4 inches in diameter! Chilling time is crucial here, don’t skip this step or you will be disappointed in the results.
Gingerbread Toffee Squares: I was giving this one the side-eye, but I had to try it. I’ve made several batches of what’s affectionately known as “Christmas Crack,” which is the same premise without the molasses and spices. But I was curious about this version because of the strong flavor of molasses; I was sure it would be overpowering. We’re not using just a tiny bit of molasses either, this is ¼ cup of it. I’m not the greatest candymaker, and for my first trial run I didn’t cook the butter/spice mixture for long enough, so I ended up with caramel instead of toffee. My second batch yielded better results. The finished product does have a strong, heavily-spiced flavor, but it’s balanced by the creamy white chocolate on top. I always have problems melting white chocolate, though, and this was par for the course. It seized and became lumpy, but I added a little canola oil and that made it smooth enough to smear all over the cooled cracker mixture. You’ll do better than I did when you make it. Bonus: you can make this gluten-free by using GF matzoh crackers instead of saltines!
Gooey Butter Cookies: I’ve never made a cookie like this, but I mean look at the title, what’s not to love? Gooey. Butter. Cookie. That’s gonna be a yes from me every time. This is a soft vanilla cookie with a cheesecake center. The recipe was very simple, thanks to a box of yellow cake mix, and the baking time is short. I divided the dough evenly and got exactly 24 cookies from the batch. These were a big hit among my taste-testers!
Ritz Cracker Cookies: Easily my favorite. 100/10. I am obsessed with salty/sweet combinations, and I’m telling you, this cookie is perfect. I thought for sure that the Ritz crackers would not be crispy on the second (or third) day, but they were, and what I have learned is that I can never be alone in a room with these cookies because I cannot be trusted. After taste testing the finished cookies, I took the rest to work and gave them to an entirely different department so that they would be out of reach.
So there you have it, just a few of the recipes that will be the talk of every bake sale and potluck on your calendar. I highly recommend adding this cookbook to your collection, or gifting it to your favorite baker. If you’re in the market for a cookie tin of your own, you can shop at www.milkbarstore.com .
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