*This post was made possible through the kind sponsorship of The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas.
It’s not easy to become a famous chef by making desserts, and that is precisely what Christina Tosi has done big time. With her now-famous Milk Bar group of restaurants, she has turned the dessert world on its head with her amazing creations. While staying at The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas recently, I had the incredible opportunity to attend a private session making Cake Truffles with Christina Tosi. I will never look at cake the same way again.
It was so awesome to spend time with Chef Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar fame.
Meeting Christina Tosi in person was the real treat, and she is extremely approachable with a great sense of humor. I mentioned watching her as a judge alongside Gordon Ramsey on the hit TV show Master Chef, because my friend Claudia Sandoval had been the winner of Season 6! Christina loved hearing how well Claudia is doing (we bonded over Claudia’s ridiculously delicious Tres Leches Cake, but that’s another story and another cookbook).
Momofuku Milk Bar
Christina puts such attention to detail into each one of her creations, and the flavor profiles are intensely delicious. She has perfected the exact right balance of flavors, textures and aesthetics to produce gorgeous cakes that taste out of this world. Her focus is on flavors, infusing different combinations into every possible ingredient that enhances them beyond their original. For example, milk is never used plain – it’s always infused with some other flavor to add another opportunity to layer flavors into what becomes a complex combination of many elements. Whatever she is doing, please keep doing it because it works!
Birthday Cake at its finest, by Chef Christina Tosi from Momokufu Milk Bar.
Making Cake Truffles with Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar
The story behind Christina’s now-famous Cake Truffles is amazing, but you first have to learn how she makes her cakes. Each cake layer is baked in a rectagular baking pan, and then circles of cake are cut from the pan. (This is ingeniusly done so that Christina can be assured the cake is cooked consistently through from edge to edge.) This process leaves cake scraps leftover, and she didn’t want to waste perfectly good cake. Thus, she invented Cake Truffles.
Chef Christina Tosi demonstrates how to make a Cake Truffle.
Now so popular that she has to make extra pans of cake devoted just to Cake Truffles, these delicious creations are available in her restaurants by the single or multiple. I came home with 12, and my family devoured them by the next morning!
Birthday Cake Truffles
Here is the general process we followed to make Birthday Cake Truffles with Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar fame, under her personal direction.
Our Birthday Cake Truffle assembly line, in which I was a cake crumbler.
We crumbled up a pan of birthday cake into little pieces.
Into the bowl of crumbles, we added some vanilla infused milk
We mixed the milk and crumbles together with our hands, gaining a consistency that was sticky not clumpy.
Using a scoop, we rolled the cake mixture into balls about the size of a ping pong ball.
From there, the balls were dipped in melted white chocolate mixed with a bit of coconut oil to thin out the clumping factor. The chocolate coating seals in the moist cake and creates a crunchy hard shell for added texture.
Then the ball is rolled in toasted birthday cake crumbs, which stick to the hardening chocolate and add a crunchy exterior.
The balls are set aside to cool while the process continues.
Finished Cake Truffles cooling on the plate, as we perched nearby waiting to taste them. Mmmmmmm.
When all was complete, we had to taste our creations of course. They were beyond delicious.
There were three other teams at our session, all making different flavors of cake truffles. One was a chocolate brownie cake truffle, one was a salty/sweet combo of chocolate, pretzels and peanuts, and one was a lemon cake with raspberry coating that was just stupid good.
If you don’t feel like making Cake Truffles yourself, you can always mosey up to the Milk Bar at The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas. Chef Christina has set up an awesome outpost there, where her guests sample creations beyond anything I have described here.
Mosey up to the Milk Bar at The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas for a sweet treat or two, or three…
Now back home in my own little kitchen, I am definitely going to try this with the kids. Sophia loves to bake, and she will enjoy coming up with interesting combinations of flavors to make her own Cake Truffles. We’ll keep you posted!
Part of Chef Christina Tosi’s vibe is these colorful headbands, which we all wore as we made our creations.
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2 thoughts on “Making Cake Truffles with Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar”
We tried the Milk Bar last weekend and hubby absolutely loved the twisted soft serve ice cream! Thanks for the recommendation.
We tried the Milk Bar last weekend and hubby absolutely loved the twisted soft serve ice cream! Thanks for the recommendation.
So glad you enjoyed!