Jeremy gifted me the Milk Bar Cookbook for Mother’s Day this year, and I could not wait to get baking. I’ve only made the brownie pie and blondie pie so far, but I can give you a quick review of the cookbook from what I’ve seen.
Overall, I would say the Milk Bar Cookbook is really for intermediate bakers, NOT beginners. The recipes call for ingredients that are not commonly found in a typical pantry, ingredients like glucose or dry milk powder. While there are many pictures of the finished desserts, there aren’t a lot of step-by-step photos of the how-to and the techniques.
The variety of recipes, however, is fantastic! The flavor combinations and sheer creativity of the desserts has got me so excited – from their famous cereal milk ice cream to kimchi croissants. I’ve only made the brownie pie and blondie pie so far because they looked like some of the easiest recipes to start with.
Like I said earlier, though, even those recipes were more intense than you’d normally expect. The blondie pie required making the graham crust separately as well as a cashew nut brittle. You have to crush part of the cashew nut brittle to mix into the filling, which includes melted white chocolate. Then you take the rest of the brittle and blend it down to a praline to top the finished pie. And that’s one of the more SIMPLE recipes. To make the cakes you’d need to bake not just the cake itself, but also make the cake soak, the crumb, the frosting, and various curd fillings.
In the end, though, both pies tasted AMAZING! I think it’s worth the effort to pull off a showstopper dessert from this cookbook. If you’re on the fence, Milk Bar has a few recipes they posted online to their blog. There’s also pie and cookie mixes that you can buy from World Market. I’ve actually tried the crack pie mix, which ended up really tasty! If you think you’ve got what it takes, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the Milk Bar cookbook. And if not, then please come over and help eat my desserts.