Notes about Recipes in this book

• Lemon poppy seed bundt cake

  • shirofly12 on July 03, 2020

    Took this to the office and it was a huge hit. I did make quite a bit of modifications though (just to fit my needs/what I had during COVID). Reduced ingredients by 1/3 and it fit perfectly in m 10 cup bundt pan. Used lemon zest and calamansi juice, no segments. Because of that I reduced the sugar by 25%. Equal portion white whole wheat, whole wheat pastry, and AP flour. Coconut milk w/vinegar instead of buttermilk. 1/2 the poppy seeds (just not a huge fan). Baked a little quicker because of the smaller pan. Topped it with a simple powdered sugar/calamansi glaze. Despite all those changes it was SO GOOD! I can see how the lemon segments amp up the flavor. Definitely a new favorite recipe!

  • bwhip on January 29, 2019

    Great cake. Super lemony, with a bright, fresh flavor from all of that lemon zest, juice, and especially the supremed bits of lemon! Glaze is a great accompaniment. Our bundt pans are pretty standard size, but the recipe made more batter than would fit, so I wound up making the bundt and a small loaf pan too.

  • anya_sf on December 07, 2018

    I only needed 1.5 lbs lemons and am glad I weighed the lemon pulp as I went because it took me a long time to segment and de-seed them. Once that part was done, the cake mixed easily by hand. It completely filled the bundt pan, but didn't rise much during baking (center never puffed), so no overflow. The cake stuck to the pan in a few places where the pieces of lemon touched the pan. Half the glaze was sufficient. The cake was super duper moist - probably from all that butter and oil - and quite delicious.

  • kellz on January 21, 2019

    My son always wants lemon cake for his birthday, and I made this for him without the poppy seeds (he’s not a fan). It was phenomenal. So moist with a wonderful lemon flavor. Added more powdered sugar to stiffen up the glaze. This will definitely be my new go-to lemon cake recipe. Also, I only had about half the amount of grapeseed oil on hand so subbed in avocado oil for the remainder.

  • taste24 on May 24, 2021

    Excellent cake. So moist, lemony, and perfect sweetness. Prepping the lemons took a while, but the rest of the cake came together quickly.

  • ChefLeen on June 11, 2023

    No one was a fan of the segments. It ruined the cake for us. Now seeing so many positive reviews I will need to try again.

• Raspberry bundt cake

  • ChefLeen on June 11, 2023

    One of the best Bundt cakes I ever had. Fine crumb, moist and the glaze surprisingly brought the cake together. I will be making this again.

  • taste24 on June 17, 2020

    This recipe is superb!! So moist and so much flavor. It is a little crumbly once you cut into it.. perhaps user error. Made this for my mom's birthday and she LOVED it.

  • zacharyzachary on May 22, 2023

    This is a terrific recipe that resulted in beautiful swirls inside the cake. I cut the sugar by about 25% and used lemon for the glaze instead of grapefruit.

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    I wasn't planning on making this cake because the picture in the book does not look very appealing. However, after seeing the photo from anya_sf, I think I will give it a try because that picture makes it look so good!

  • anya_sf on June 17, 2020

    I won't rate this since I messed up. I made 1/2 recipe, but forgot to add the buttermilk and overbaked it. Still, it was tasty enough that I have to try again. I didn't bother with the glaze since I goofed on the cake and hadn't bought a grapefruit yet. This cake has a lot of sugar, which I will reduce slightly next time when I use the glaze.

• Cherry cola bundt cake

  • smcculle on September 20, 2023

    this came out awesome with bob’s red mill gluten free flour

• Sesame pound cake

  • anya_sf on February 26, 2020

    I gave up trying to break the brittle with a mallet (it went flying everywhere) and just ground it in a food processor. Once the brittle was made, the cake was quick and easy to mix by hand. It browned very quickly, so I turned the oven down to 325 after 30 min; the cake was done in 70 min, but burned slightly at the edges. It was dense and moist and tasted just like those sesame honey candies - somewhat unusual, but I loved it.

• Rhubarb-elderflower pound cake

  • ChefLeen on June 15, 2023

    This pound cake was perfectly moist with a fine crumb. The rhubarb elderflower goo was next level. So good. I’ll be making this every spring.

• Pretzel pound cake

  • Bwolfe2 on December 07, 2019

    This is an easy cake that is not too sweet. I took it to work, told coworkers they were welcomed to a slice and went to a two hour meeting. The cake was totally consumed when I returned. :o) I was so glad I had taken a slice at home or I wouldn’t have known what it tasted like.

• Molten chocolate microwave mug cake

  • anya_sf on September 11, 2020

    Nearly instant gratification! Worried about overflow, I used 12 oz mugs, but needn't have worried, as the cakes did not rise to the tops of the mugs. They cooked in 2 min 15 sec. There was still a pudding-like layer at the bottom, which made a nice sauce. Portions were generous. Next time I will make 3 smaller cakes and top them with ice cream to balance the sweet, chocolatey cake.

  • Pandan on May 31, 2024

    Maybe the best mug cake I had so far! I loved the texture due to the cake flour. Reduced sugar to 80 grams, was enough. The cakes didn’t rise to the top. Next time I will microwave a bit shorter, didn’t have any fudgy dough left.

• Banana-chocolate-peanut butter crock-pot cake

  • anya_sf on December 07, 2018

    This was my first and probably last crock-pot cake, as the edges totally burned after the minimum 4 hour cooking time on low. My crock pot is around 15 years old - cooking temperatures may have changed over the years. The part of the cake that didn't burn had a soft, blondie-like texture, but a bit lighter. The peanut butter "goo" is drizzled over the cake like sauce or icing, and is an absolute requirement for the best flavor (there's no peanut butter in the actual cake). We gilded the lily by serving it with vanilla ice cream. The flavor combination was great! I might try making this again in the oven.

• Peanut butter goo

  • anya_sf on December 07, 2018

    Simple to make and delicious with the crock pot cake, but you could serve this with other desserts as well.

• Vanilla milk soak

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    Keeps the birthday cake moist for several days.

• Birthday frosting

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    I made this to go on the birthday (confetti) cake. It goes well with this cake, but not sure I would use on another cake. It tastes like an icing that comes out of a can.

• Birthday crumbs

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    Adds a nice texture to the birthday cake. Leftovers freeze well. Note: if using the weight measurements, the sugar should be 210 grams, not 21 grams, for 1 cup + 1 tablespoon.

• Corn and blueberry sheet cake

  • Rradishes on October 25, 2019

    Delicious cake, very rich as all of Tosi's cakes. I forgot to line the pans with parchment, and the delicate cake broke to pieces when I was taking it out of the pan. But I packed it back in and it set just fine!

• Arnold Palmer sheet cake

  • taste24 on June 12, 2020

    This was a very unique cake. The cake was bitter and tasted so strongly of black tea - you definitely would not eat it on its own. But paired with the lemon frosting and citrus crumbs, the bite is definitely reminiscent of an Arnold Palmer drink.

• Vanilla cupcakes

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    After making a couple of the cakes out of All About Cake, I tried the vanilla cupcakes. They did not turn out well at all. The texture was too airy for a cupcake and they fell apart trying to remove the cupcake liner. Won't be making these again.

• Strawberry-coconut cupcakes

  • anya_sf on December 07, 2018

    I used store-bought strawberry jam and didn't have citric acid. The mixing method is interesting, almost like making mayonnaise, with the flour added at the end. The cupcakes looked dark on top, but the texture was fluffy, moist, and chewy from the coconut. I believe the coconut weight in the cupcake batter is in error (100 g = 1 cup); the weight for the topping is 65 g = 1 cup, which is closer to what I weighed. I went with volume, not weight. There was just enough frosting to spread on top; make extra if you want to pipe a thick layer. The combination of coconut and strawberry was good, but I wanted more zing in the frosting (maybe the citric acid would help).

• No one hates on a chocolate cupcake

  • bwhip on March 04, 2019

    These had potential, but were a bit of a fail for us. The batter is the most heavenly, silky thing you can imagine. Wonderful. However, the baked cupcake was overly delicate and crumbly. Flavor was fantastic. The note in the cookbook said that if you overbake they get crumbly. I sure tried to be careful, but just a minute earlier they were still a bit jiggly. They also collapsed a bit toward the end of baking. I might need to adjust for altitude (we're at about 2,500 ft). Frosting and crumb combination was excellent, just needed a more sturdy cupcake as a base.

• B’day truffles

  • mrsmadam on March 18, 2019

    First – these were delicious and a huge hit. I’m not a novice baker. I am, however, a novice baking by weight and was grateful for the dual guidance of measuring cups and spoons. Which brings me to the first of my problems. This recipe includes the recipe for birthday crumbs, to make “birthday sand”. My copy of the book (a library borrow) calls for 21 g sugar, or, in cups and measures 1 cup + 1 T. Obviously 21 g is not 1 cup + 1 T. After some research and Googling I landed on 210 g – clearly an editing error. It makes me wonder if the Piglet reviewer may have had a similar issue with the frosting recipe she reviewed. My second issue is with the inclusion of a full recipe of the crumbs. I have over half of the resulting “sand” left now. I certainly could have made errors in coating the balls but still---. Perhaps my library copy was a first run and further editing has corrected any other errors but I think I will wait awhile to buy a copy. I will try more recipes though.

• Birthday cake

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    The cake is moist and holds for quite a few days. I used the vanilla milk soak from page 105, iced the cake with birthday frosting from page 106 and added birthday crumbs from page 106. Although in the book, the sides of the cake are not iced, I do appreciate a good amount of icing on my cake. It is, after all, a birthday cake.

• Chocolate malt cake truffles

  • taste24 on June 17, 2020

    These were delicious. Great chocolate flavor, perhaps could have used a little more malt? Overall a big hit with everyone.

• Apple compote

  • pomona on April 26, 2019

    It's more apple-flavoured cinammon syrup than apple compote, but makes sense considering what she uses it for in baking.

• Strawberry-lemon cake truffles

  • KatGeorge on April 29, 2023

    These were a huge hit at a work pot luck. The chocolate step was definitely a messy challenge - I will try the recommendation included here of chilling the cake balls first. Such a fun and whimsical dessert - lots of steps but I love the whole process so I enjoyed. (Definitely need to plan ahead though…)

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    The truffles were very sweet. They were also really messy to make. I found that after forming the cake into balls, that it was easier to to dip in the chocolate if they were frozen for 5 minutes or until firm. It was also easier to apply the chocolate without using the gloves, which just seemed to make the process even messier. They lasted several days in the refrigerator.

• Vanilla cake

  • jay.moe on February 08, 2022

    This is a very good vanilla cake. It's moist and has a nice texture. The only problem I have with the cake is that it is made in a quarter-sheet pan and then cut into three 6 inch rounds. My quarter sheet pan isn't quite big enough to make three nice 6" rounds, so the middle layer is made of 2 halves plus a few extra bits to make a complete layer, although it's not really noticeable when the cake is cut, I would prefer using three round 6" pans.

  • babyfork on April 15, 2020

    Midnight tipsy pandemic cake baking! I think I subbed regular milk for the buttermilk (it's a bit hazy). This was a delicious and fairly dense cake. I ate the first piece hot out of the pan. The rest I refrigerated. I'd cut a square, briefly nuke it to warm it up, and top with a scoop of ice cream and whipped cream. Lasted almost a week eaten this way. Can't complain about this one!

• Pretzel cake truffles

  • EmilyR on May 01, 2024

    For sure a Tosi-style labor of love recipe. I'm shocked she didn't suggest soaking pretzels in the milk to further intensify the flavor and make you wonder why you didn't just buy these from her instead of investing the time, energy, and money into this. I love a good process, so I wasn't about to surrender here. These are super unique and really quite fun and worth the effort. One or two truffles is the max on serving as they are perfectly salty and then sweet, but keep a salt lick nearby and save some extra pretzels as the aftermath is sweet. I even reduced the sugar 50g in the cake knowing Tosi's a sugar fiend. Also, I only made half of the white chocolate as I wanted to stretch my Valrhona White Ivoire and I still had some left over, so I think the full batch of white chocolate will be overkill. My kids loved rolling these and making a mess, so it was fun had by all. Made ~36 truffles and all but a small sampling went straight to the freezer for my German in-law's visit.

  • taste24 on June 17, 2020

    These are awesome. Unique flavor, a great play on salty and sweet.. A strange concept but everyone who tries them goes nuts. FYI: I have made these multiple times and with multiple weight discrepancies in the book. Tosi asks you to grind down 150g of pretzels to go into the cake, but the directions ask for 32g to go into the batter. The first time I made the cake, I followed the 32g. The batter was soupy and spilled over in the oven - I could barely use the cooled cake and it just fell apart in my hands while attempting to assembled into balls. The second time, I baked with the full 150g of ground pretzels in the batter and the cake baked up beautifully.

• Pretzel cake

  • EmilyR on May 01, 2024

    I reduced the sugar by 50g as I know Tosi loves über sweet to the max. Used in the cake truffles, but the little bit I had alone was pretzel-y and good.

• Pretzel sand

  • EmilyR on May 01, 2024

    One of those super circular recipes that ensures you are flipping between all the referential recipes. This is essentially just fine ground pretzel crumble.

• Dulce de leche layer cake

  • taste24 on June 17, 2020

    I split this process up into 3 days, which made it easier and less daunting. This won me a ribbon at a baking contest - everyone loved it. I love the texture that the crumbs provide within the layers.

• Pineapple upside-down layer cake

  • anya_sf on November 14, 2019

    This was my first attempt at a Tosi layer cake and one of the most frustrating cakes I've ever made. The coconut cake's flavor was good, but the texture was too dry and crumbly, making it difficult to cut and layer in the acetate rings. The cake needed more of the maraschino syrup, which wasn't enough to turn the cake pink like the photo in the book. The pineapple frosting also tasted good, but was hard to spread, especially on crumbs. The yellow cake crumbs did provide a nice textural contrast, but there were way too many for my taste. My pineapple was small, so I barely had enough for the final cake. The poached pineapple was everyone's favorite part of this cake, but there wasn't nearly enough, and I did use the full amount called for. If I ever attempted this cake again, I'd make it shorter, with less cake and frosting, more syrup, way more pineapple, and just a sprinkling of crumbs.

• Pretzel crumbs

  • EmilyR on May 01, 2024

    I get the notion this could be simplified in some realm, because making the crumbles and drizzling white chocolate to heat it and cool it and the rest of it just seems like a fair amount of steps. Regardless, I did it as directed and it gave me what I wanted.

• Food52

  As I read through this book, I never found a recipe I felt comfortable attempting. I thought, from one page to the next, “I would love to eat this cake, if someone else would bake it.”

  Full review

• Kitchn

  I can see this book being a kinder introduction to the Milk Bar world than her first release.

  Full review

• Kitchn

  Kind of like calculus, baking is a precise art that takes a bit of time to master — and there is no better teacher than Milk Bar genius Christina Tosi.

  Full review

• Food52

  ...includes creations from both her famous Milk Bar bakery as well as treats from her home kitchen...

  Full review