field trip: momofuku milk bar

David Chang (FCI '01) and his ever-growing Momofuku empire have been an inescapably omnipresent force in Manhattan dining over the last few years, the most recent honor being Momofuku Ko's Best New Restaurant win at the James Beard Awards earlier this week. As a pastry chef, I was intrigued by Momofuku Milk Bar, the latest empire outpost, and when the FCI offered a student outing to the bakery I signed up right away.

From the street, the Milk Bar is an unassuming East Village glass storefront, close enough to the other Momofukus that customers will come over and have a drink while waiting for a table in the evenings. Inside, the space is dominated by two long wooden table/counters that customers stand at, two big black chalkboards with the current menu, and a glass case displaying the day's wares.

No sooner had we gathered around around one of the long counters than a cheerful employee brought trays of goodies out for us to try. We started with an assortment of cookies - blueberry cream cheese, banana bread, double chocolate, cornflake, and my favorite - the compost cookie. All the cookies were great - crispy on the outside, soft and fudgy on the inside - but the combination of sweet and salty in the compost cookie really hit the spot. It isn't literally composed of compost, of course, but it does boast an interesting assortment of savory surprises - potato chips, bread crumbs, pretzels - check out the cross-section below!

From cookies we moved on to cakes - chocolate chip with passion curd, dulce de leche, and a fantastic banana cake with gianduja filling and pieces of crispy feuilletine. The Milk Bar also sells an ever-rotating array of soft-serve ice cream; the four flavors we had were all based on types of donuts: jelly, old fashioned, chocolate, and bavarian cream. All the ice creams, with the disappointing exception of the chocolate, were very good, and tasted a startling amount like their inspirations.

Next were the pies - candy bar pie, cinnamon bun pie, and the dish that has already become a Momofuku signature, crack pie. Personally, I found the crack pie to be terribly overrated and not nearly as addictive as its namesake. It is very sweet and very gooey, but not very interesting. It reminded me a little of the St. Louis treat "ooey gooeys" that our crew captain in college made for team snacks, but not nearly as good.

The cinnamon bun pie, on the other hand, was surprisingly fantastic. I'm often not a big fan of commercial cinnamon buns - they're too heavy, too dry, too greasy, or not worth the astronomic calorie count. The Momofuku version has none of these flaws. Head pastry chef Christina Tosi brought a plate out to our group and explained the dish's genesis. When the Milk Bar first opened, they were serving individual cinnamon buns, but the super-popular dish was very labor-intensive and time consuming.

Transforming the bun into pie form made it easier to assemble, store, proof, and bake, without losing any deliciousness in translation. A slightly sweet bread dough forms the base of the pie, and is layered with whipped brown butter, the Milk Bar's liquid cheesecake, and cinnamon sugar (x2), then topped off with an oat streusel. Served warm from the oven, the "crust" is light and flaky, the filling oozes just enough, and the streusel provides the perfect crunchy counterpoint. Hands down the best thing I ate all afternoon.

Our Milk Bar journey took a detour to the savory side towards the end of our trip, with banana green curry bread and the Milk Bar's own kimchee and black pepper butter. The curry in the bread was hardly noticeable, but it had a beautiful moist texture and a slightly sweet banana flavor that was a nice foil for the intense savory punch of the butters. The kimchee butter reminded me more of smoky bbq chips than spicy cabbage, but was delicious all the same, while the black pepper butter had a Mediterranean tang of olive oil and parmesan.

Throughout the visit, I was trying to decide how to categorize or sum up the Milk Bar's offerings, other than delicious. Surprising, inventive - but not really, since most of the items were using flavors or flavor combinations that were established favorites. Where the Milk Bar seems to shine is taking those classics and reinventing them in other media - ice cream out of donut flavors, a blueberry-cream cheese cookie taking inspiration from a blueberry muffin top, candy-bar and cinnamon bun pies, cookies with pretzels. Your favorite flavors, made new again.

Our final dish at the Milk Bar was another signature and a popular breakfast item - the Momofuku pork bun with a deep-fried poached egg and pickled cucumbers. As I've already mentioned on this blog, I have a soft spot in my heart for some deep-fried things. While I don't think I'll be trying this one at home anytime soon, it was quite delicious, and a perfect way to end the visit (and stave off a serious sugar crash on the walk home).

Saucepan Brownies

This, my friends, is a truly rare piece of paper. Battered and butter-stained it may be, but its scarcity value is almost incalculable. This practically one of a kind item is a recipe in my father's handwriting. Don't get me wrong, my dad is a really good cook when he chooses to be - he makes the best pancakes ever, and can cook pretty much anything on a grill. But he's never been a baking or recipe-book kind of guy. This recipe's provenance, then, is something special.

It originated, not with my father, but with my maternal grandmother. One of my mom's favorites when she was a kid, it was a recipe she would call home for once she had a kitchen of her own. One day over 25 years ago, my mom and her then-boyfriend drove down to my mom's hometown on a quest for all of her favorite childhood recipes. My grandma pulled out cookbooks and binders filled with handwritten notes, and my dad was set to work copying old recipes onto notecards in his distinctive lawyer's scribble.

I remember my mom making these brownies occasionally when I was younger, but I hadn't thought about them in ages. A fortuitous lack of groceries brought them back to my attention when I was home in the Twin Cities for a few days last week. My youngest sister is as ardent a chocoholic and as willing a taste-tester as a pastry chef could hope to find. So when I proposed making brownies after dinner one night she was flatteringly enthusiastic, and I set to work. I planned to use a brownie recipe I'd made and liked before, which called for both bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened cocoa powder and took about an hour to bake.

Alas, nowhere in our vast suburban cupboards was any cocoa powder to be found, and my lazy New Yorker self couldn't stomach the thought of having to get in a car and drive somewhere to procure some. While my dad was suggesting replacing the cocoa powder with anything chocolate he saw (hot cocoa mix, Toll House chocolate chips, Hershey's syrup), my mom pulled this recipe from an old brown binder.

As I soon discovered, this recipe alone was well worth the drive my parents took so long ago. It's simple (7 ingredients, which are probably in your kitchen right now), fast (35 minutes start to finish), and incredibly delicious. Straightforward and intensely chocolate-y, this is the archetype of the classic American brownie. Walnuts are optional - my family's split half and half on the issue, and so is the batch I made at home.

Here's the recipe as my dad copied it out, with my notes below.

2 squares chocolate = 2 oz. The original recipe calls for unsweetened chocolate; I was going with what we had at home so I used some unsweetened and some of a nice bittersweet Scharffen Berger that was left in our cupboard from my last visit home, so I decreased the sugar a little.

1/2 stick butter = 1/4 c. or 4 tbsp.

6x10 inch pans aren't quite as common as they used to be; I used an 8x8 inch glass pan and it worked out nicely

I didn't frost the brownies, but I'm sure that would be good too

coda

Our last month of class was stuffed with projects and exams, not least of which was the "menu project." Such a simple name for such a complex beast! It is not, as the name might suggest, merely a menu. It is actually the creation of an entire restaurant and rationale, a black hole-like project capable of absorbing every ounce of energy and ambition a pastry student can muster. I wasn't the only student in my class to lie awake at night thinking about plating designs or foist trial runs of prospective desserts on friends and relatives.

The focus of my labor, my own greedy little black hole, was called Coda. A dessert and wine bar near Lincoln Center, it would feature classical French desserts influenced by the cosmopolitan atmosphere of New York City and the Lincoln Center neighborhood. I envisioned it as the ideal place for a pre- or post-show gathering, with a contemporary, candlelit ambience equally suited to convivial conversation with friends or an intimate first date.

To transform an idea into a fully realized business plan, the project is divided into several components: a printed menu, a business fact sheet, plating diagrams for all the desserts on the menu, a class presentation/pitch, and a practical exam. The menu itself was fun to make and shop for - it gave me an excuse to spend quality time and actually buy something in the tony stationery store Kate's Paperie, usually one of my favorite places to window shop.

I knew I wanted a neutral, sophisticated look to match the clean Scandinavian lines of my virtual decor. I was almost paralyzed by the number of shades offered between white and yellow, but when I tried an ivory paper with a slight rib against a dark chocolate cardstock, I knew I had found my menu. I think it was the hint of shimmer in the cardstock that finally sold me - perfect for candlelight!

Once the written part of the project was finished, it was all about the food. For the practical exam, our chef chose two desserts from each student's menu. The desserts were to be plated and served a la minute at an assigned time, as if they had been ordered in the restaurant. To give you an idea of how the project looked on paper, here are my plating diagrams for the two desserts I prepared for the practical: Pain Perdu and the Metropolitan Opera Cake.

We had two days total for the practical exam: one to mis en place (prepare) the components of our desserts, and one for final touches and plating. As with the wedding cake project, a well-planned itinerary was crucial for success. Since both my desserts included ice cream and components that needed to be baked, I spent most of the first day making and spinning ice cream, baking chocolate and hazelnut cake, and shaping and baking the brioche for my pain perdu. I also candied my hazelnuts, made chocolate sauce, prepared hazelnut cream, and assembled my Opera cake. Whew!

Day 2 was even busier: I made custard for the pain perdu, baked it off, glazed and cut my Opera cake, and successfully flambeed my fruit compote without lighting myself on fire. As my assigned time for plating drew near, I gathered my components. Clean, logical station organization is crucial for successful plated desserts - the chef needs to be able to find everything she needs quickly and not get in her own way. Timing is critical when working with desserts that involve hot or frozen components, and I had both on my plates. The pain perdu needed to be fried right before plating, because no one likes lukewarm French toast, and the ice cream had to be scooped at the last minute so it wouldn't be a sloshy puddle when I got to the chef's station for judging.

My itinerary worked out well, despite a last minute fear that my pain perdu had gotten cold which spurred me to fry two more pieces for grading in the last 90 seconds before my assigned time. All the components made it on the plate, and the desserts basically resembled their paper templates. I was especially excited about my Metropolitan Opera Cake, my version of the French classic, which was named after the Opera Garnier in Paris. The original features hazelnut cake with coffee buttercream, chocolate ganache, and chocolate glaze; mine was composed of chocolate and hazelnut cake layers soaked with a potent espresso-whiskey syrup, filled with a rich hazelnut cream, and topped with a chocolate glaze. Coffee ice cream, chocolate sauce, and candied hazelnuts were served on the side. Yum. I unfortunately didn't get a picture of my desserts until after the ice cream melted, but imagine a cute little scoop of ice cream instead of a puddle, and you've got the idea.

The pain perdu was an interesting challenge for me because it's basically French French toast. And I hate French toast. So my goal was to come up with a recipe that even people who don't like French toast would like. Rather than soaking bread in a custard and frying it off immediately, I decided to try baking the bread in the custard first, then frying it at the last minute. I hoped that this would give the pain a nice crisp crust, while keeping the inside soft and creamy. Luckily for me, I have friends who like French toast and were willing to be guinea pigs - a big thank you to Brian, Ainsley, and Catherine, who sacrificed a Sunday evening to come over and eat lots of dessert!

The experimental technique was a definite success - baking the custard in a low oven kept it sweet and creamy, and it didn't develop the overdone, eggy flavor that normally turns me off French toast. My tasters approved, and I even ate a whole piece myself. I used homemade brioche, but for all you French toast lovers, this technique would also be great with challah or another enriched bread with a texture and crumb hearty enough to stand up to being soaked and baked in custard. Here's what the final product looked like (served with flambeed fruit compote, a whipped cream rosette and a puddle of formerly pretty maple ice cream).

It consumed several weeks of my life, robbed me of many hours of sleep, and gave me a few new grey hairs, but I ended up loving my menu project. I was very sorry to say goodbye to Coda when the last dessert had been graded. So if anyone out there has start-up capital lying around and wants to fund a dessert and wine bar near Lincoln Center, you know where to reach me...

something tiered, something blue

The wedding cake project is one of the culminating events of the pastry arts curriculum. It begins as a cooperative effort between Levels 2 and 3, as the Level 2 students act as the "clients" for the project. They assemble a full portfolio to guide the Level 3 students making the cakes, choosing a bride and groom, a location and theme for the wedding, colors, flowers and even a first song and a dinner menu for the reception.

My class had previously been on this creative end of the project, nominating Prince Harry and the heiress to the F.A.O Schwarz fortune (who happens to be Glenn Close's daughter) for a winter wonderland wedding at a castle in Scotland. I helped design and word the royal invitation, and wrote a backstory for the couple in the manner of a "Vows" column in the New York Times, complete with cheesy (but perfect) closing quote. Being on the receiving end of this torrent of information, then trying to decide how to turn a pile of facts, locations, and colors into a cake that embodies the essence of a couple, I found much harder.

Our happy couple was a pair of Americans heading to a destination wedding in Barcelona. She was a teacher, he was an attorney. They met in Spanish class at Harvard, and chose blue as the color for their casual ceremony. Flowers were bluebells and frangipani, the china had hints of blue, and the bridesmaids wore another shade of blue altogether.

Never having been married or looked at wedding cakes much myself, I wasn't sure where to start. The only wedding cake I was acquainted with was my parents', which in the simple spirit of their wedding was a single layer of cake covered with chocolate frosting. My mother has been heard to compare it to a muddy football field, but apparently it tasted delicious. However, since our cake for class was required to be three tiers tall, I would have to search for inspiration elsewhere.

I found it in the delicate, elaborate scrolls on the invitation. My vision was of a simple, graphic design in white sugarpaste on a background of blue rolled fondant, the bright colors echoing the Spanish location and casual, joyful nature of the ceremony. The topper would be a simple monogram in pastillage (another type of sugar paste) echoing the design and surrounded by the beautiful frangipani. The cake itself, a recipe dictated by our chef-instructor, was an orange pound cake filled with a Grand Marnier ganache and the thinnest layer of orange marmalade.

We were given three days to complete the cake start-to-finish, so a detailed and tightly planned itinerary was a must. Day 1 was a mad rush of cake mixing and baking, cutting layers, trimming edges, making buttercream, mixing the ganache (with plenty of Grand Marnier, of course), and filling the cakes. I also made my fondant for covering the cake and the pastillage sugar dough for the monogram.

Day 2 saw me crumb-coating the cakes, making the delicate sugarpaste frangipani, and attempting to cut out my design for the front of the cake. My usually trusty X-acto knife (an important weapon in the pastry chef's arsenal) proved stubbornly incapable of cutting the clean edges through rolled sugarpaste that my design demanded. When my paring knife failed almost as badly, I called on our chef for advice. His inspiration to make the design elements 3-dimensional produced a cleaner, bolder look than the cut-outs and eliminated the rough edges that had been fretting me. So I spent the last part of class frantically rolling out sugarpaste pieces and trying to give them the gentle curves and contours of the invitation's scrolls.

Day 3 was all about assembly and the final touches. When each layer, and a cardboard base, had been carefully covered in its blue fondant wrapping, wooden dowels cut exactly to measure were inserted through the center of each tier. These dowels, though barely 1/4" thick, are capable of supporting significant weight when properly distributed. I found myself holding my breath as I stacked the tiers on top of one another and gently secured the monogram and flowers to the top-most tier. It held, and I reached quickly for my camera.

The Level 2 students, who had set all of our cakes in motion, got to come up and vote for their favorite. As they walked around the room and examined each cake in turn, I was struck by the variety of designs and colors that my class had produced as each student filtered the requirements given them through the lens of personal taste and experience - we ran the gamut from pristine white cakes covered in tiny delicate flowers to bold, colorful cakes inspired by Gaudi's surreal Barcelona architecture.

My cake didn't win. It might not have gotten even one vote. But the experience of transforming a two-dimensional drawing into a (delicious!) three-dimensional cake was much more fun than I expected. I'd like to think that Katie and Dennis (our mythical couple) would have enjoyed the cake I made for them - I know the former co-workers that I brought it to certainly did!

mea culpa

I'm sorry, I know it's been forever and a day since I last posted.  I had good reason, I promise - a flurry of final projects and studying and exams was keeping me very very busy.  But it's all over now, and I am officially the proud possessor of a Grand Diplome in Classic Pastry Arts (with honors, no less!)  There were some ups and downs in the last few weeks, but overall it was a wonderful ride.  Keep an eye out for a series of posts with my final projects - there's some cool stuff!