Milk Bar Baking Experience
I took a baking class at the Milk Bar Lab in Brooklyn, New York and it was awesome!
I’ve been obsessed with Milk Bar ever since I saw the Chef’s Table episode (1st one too) on Netflix and I’m ever so grateful to even be able to take this class. The concept of keeping the cake exposed? Genius! And using cereal milk as a flavor? Double genius!
Side note: Shout out and huge thank you to Shilpa (my sister from another mother!) for gifting me this class as my birthday present, I’m forever indebted.
So, here’s the classroom I walked into one Saturday morning:
Beautiful high ceiling and super airy spot with enough space for 20-25 students.
A close-up of my station for the class:
It wasn’t more of a baking class than a cake decorating/arrangement class. I wasn’t upset though, there were so many tricks and steps to be absorbed here. As you may have noticed, they have special spoons to help layer and pour in precision for every layer of the cake. I would eventually look into having some in my kitchen if they’re on sale that is…
Anyway, here is the step by step process of the layering:
Since the cake doesn’t give full 3 layers and Milk Bar (and I) believe in 0% waste, the 3rd layer can be creatively cut off provided you plan the cuts before cutting. The 2-halves can be used as the middle layer so that it doesn’t mess with the structure at all.
After placing the first cake layer in the mold, add the strawberry jam. This is SO good, I would LOVE to master the skill of making this from scratch. One step at a time…
The next layer is milk rocks (I made up this name, I forget what they call it). They basically taste like milk powder with a little bit of lemon water maybe? I think that’s how they made it. Definitely adds that extra crunch consistency to the cake throughout:
After this comes the lemon curd. SO good – lemony sour-y goodness! I was generous with this layer:
This process was continued twice. It helps to add lemon sugar-water to the cake when layering to keep the cake moist over time. I practically soaked mine on each layer and in my opinion, that really helped with the flavor and texture of the cake.
The final layer of cake is added before adding the final ingredient – strawberry buttercream:
They even gave us sprinkles to get creative with it.
There’s so much creativity out there…
I had a few options myself and then later decided to not go with the jam on top since it looked like my cake was bleeding or something…
Anyway, look at how beautiful…
