How Milk Bar's Christina Tosi became "All About Cake"

Christina Tosi's new cookbook might be called "All About Cake" but there was a time when the pastry chef was anything but. Tosi, the founder of popular bakery Milk Bar, used to find the dessert somewhat boring.

"I was raised in the family where cake was what happened when you celebrated something and no matter the celebration, cake existed. But cake was like a sheet cake and it was chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. I just felt like there was a wild, wonderful world of flavor and texture and permission to dig in and get creative that was missing in cake," Tosi told "CBS This Morning."

Tosi is the creative force behind cult favorites like Crack Pie, cereal milk-flavored soft-serve ice cream and layered birthday cake famous for its lack of frosting. But before she exploded into the pastry world with her wildly inventive takes on sugary classics, she was a culinary school student just trying to make a perfectly frosted cake.

"We would belabor over frosting these cakes perfectly and making them these beautiful works of art. But then I always took a step back and was like, 'but I'm here to eat the cake!' It should be an invitation to eat. I don't want to take myself so seriously about what it looks like. ... I want to take you all the time to put ingenuity into the flavors and layers and textures of it all. And I want the cake to be an invitation to come in and get busy with forks," she said.

That philosophy has served her well. Milk Bar just opened its 15th location last month in Los Angeles.

Another one of Tosi's guiding philosophies is to create as much joy as possible in the world.

"For me, it's baking and it's beyond baking, secretly. It is an outlet for creativity. For me, it's also an outlet to connect with people. I love to bake because I love to feed people and feeding people dessert – joy begets joy," Tosi said.

Let's block ads! (Why?)