Christina Tosi Skype-Bakes With Her Mom And Grandma; Also, The Recipe For Cake Truffles

Maybe meeting Christina Tosi on a giant computer wasn’t the ideal way to be introduced to a James Beard Award-winning pastry chef, but that’s the way technology works. She had just talked her sous-chef, as well as two polished lifestyle bloggers elbow-deep in bowls of cake globs, through making her famous cake truffles. We were in a Manhattan loft (designed to look like a kitchen). She was about four miles away. All of this happened thanks to the magic of Skype.

But it wasn’t as if Tosi had signed onto a Skype PR event just for the Internet Money — she was, as she laughed, a legitimate “sucker for Skype.” With the restaurant empire spanning three countries and one Pacific ocean, she and the Momofuku team depend on it for their everyday communication; she was just about to travel to Sydney that week.  (That said, she confirmed that at the moment, she has no plans on opening any more Milk Bars outside of New York City. Sorry, everyone else in the world.)

She also uses it to connect with her mom and grandmother in Virginia for long-distance bonding while baking. “Compared to [them and their years of baking knowledge,] I don’t know how to do anything,” she confessed, though she did suspect that the women who taught her to bake were downplaying their own skills. “They’re always asking me, ‘What should I do? What should I do?'” she laughed. “Usually they’re pretty good about pretending that they don’t know anything.”

Final fun fact: Milk Bar has its own Skype account (momomilkbar). If you’re having problems with the following recipe, give them a call. Oh yeah, here’s the recipe for those amazing cake truffles.

Cake Truffles

semi-stale cake (she used funfetti — the only important thing is that it’s dry)

Flavored milk (ANY flavor– in this case she used vanilla – flavored milk)

Melted chocolate (for the demo she used white chocolate)

Crumble cake by hand in a large bowl. Set aside enough cake to make very small crumbs.

Pour in enough milk to make the cake moist but not soggy.

With your hands, form cake into balls of any size you personally desire. (Tosi’s truffle was the size of a grapefruit.)

Dip truffle into melted chocolate to coat, then into crumbs.

Place on baking sheet, parchment paper, or plate, and serve.

Cereal Milk

2 1/2 cups cornflakes (toasted for 20 minutes on slow heat)

3 1/4 cups milk

2 tablespoons light brown sugar

1/4 tsp kosher salt

In a large bowl, steep everything in milk for 20 minutes. Strain through chinois into pitcher and chill.

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