Hands down, the best cake I’ve ever made.

Christina Tosi can do no wrong. The founder and creative mastermind behind Milk Bar, bakery to the Momofuku restaurant group, is responsible for bringing back some of childhood’s most nostalgic flavours — s’mores, apple pie and my favourite cereal milk. 

The Milk Bar B’Day Cake is no exception. #Throwback to Betty Crocker’s boxed cake mix, now reimagined with more grown up flavour nuances, texture variety and Tosi’s expert pastry direction. In fact, it took her and her team over three years to perfectly capture the taste experience that comes immediately after blowing out your birthday candles.

And for a cake this good, it’s no wonder a 6″ version costs a hefty $70. 

It may be because this one recipe has, within it, four separate recipe components. It may also be because other bakers claim this recipe to take 16 hours from start to finish. 

So, what goes through my mind when I procrastinate and fail to start baking ’til 9 p.m.?

• Shock: it can’t be 9 p.m.
• Denial: what kind of recipe takes 16 hours???
• Anger: WHAT KIND OF RECIPE TAKES 16 HOURS
• Bargaining: I’ll finish the rest tomorrow.
• Acceptance: it’s 3 a.m. 

No, I didn’t pull an all-nighter for the sake of a cake. Rather, I was able to finish with an ample 4.5 hours of sleep because of some recipe adjustments (i.e. corners cut). The main one being, instead of cutting and assembling with a ring and acetate, I baked each layer in an individual cake pan. 

The praise alone, for this cake, is well worth the time and late-night effort. An airy chiffon centre is made even lighter with tangy buttermilk, sweetened with rich cream cheese icing and contrasted with a salty-chewy crumb. The cake is served cold from frozen, which makes the vanilla-flavoured milk soak also a refreshing surprise. 

In the making

✘ Avoid spreading the crumbs too thinly, or in a pan that’s too large. The areas that were thinly spread ended up browning too soon. 

✘ Do not oil or grease your baking pans, as much as it feels right to do. In fact, the same goes for all chiffon or angel cake recipes — greasing the pans will prevent proper rise, resulting in a collapsed cake. Chiffon and angel cakes need to cling to the pan to support its growth in the oven.

✔ DIY your own cake flour: start with one cup of all-purpose flour (130 g). Remove 2 tbs 20 grams) of all-purpose flour and replace it with 2 tbs of cornstarch. Sift the mixture between bowls 3-5 times to aerate the flour and make for a lighter, fluffy texture. (Source: thekitchn.com) This recipe requires just under three cups of cake flour, so these measurements would need to be tripled.

✔ DIY your own buttermilk! Measure one tbs of white vinegar or lemon juice, and pour it into a liquid measuring cup, Then, pour 2% milk in the same measuring cup until it reaches the one cup measurement line. (Source: mybakingaddiction.com) 

Illustration source: milkbarstore.com