A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Why are Cookies so Expensive? ft. Christina Tosi

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Today, Josh and Nicole are joined by founder of MilkBar and world renowned baker Christina Tosi to talk all things cookies. The best way to make them, what goes into creating cookie recipes, how to actually sell and market them, and why they are getting so damn expensive. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@mythicalkitchen To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Book direct and save at bestwestern.com What makes a cookie so expensive? It's just sugar, flour, and butter. Buckle up, Josh, you're about to find out. You cool to take this one, award-winning pastry chef, Christina Tosi? Oh, yeah. I was born for this one. This is a hot dog is a sandwich.

Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? You thought that was seductive? Okay, fine.

More like official. Is that better? Welcome to our podcast. A hot dog is a sandwich, the show we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Joshair. And I'm your host, Nicole Initi.

And today we have a very special guest on the pod. She's the founder, owner of Milk Bar, James Beard Award-winning pastry chef, and the progenitor of cool girl baking. A woman who is as iconic as her cereal milk, ice cream, and compost cookies. It is the Christina Tosi. Christina, welcome to the show.

Thank you for being here. I mean, is a hot dog a sandwich? It sure is. Thank you. I'm over. I'm over the drama. It is. A woman on the right side of history.

So we founded this podcast more than five years ago at this point, and we had not covered the actual topic of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich until we did a five-part series where we interviewed a philosopher, a historian, a lawyer, because there have been multiple legal battles over this, and then an actual hot dog business owner to get the real boots on the ground and then we debated people on the street and we've still been split until now because Nicole wants to defer to you which I really respect. Yes, yes. I am a very respectful

debater. But the reason we wanted to have you here today is because I feel like we are going through maybe a third I'm going to call it the third wave cookie Renaissance. I knew you're going to say Renaissance. There's a rena but there's a new renaissance but I think you can sort of track these

waves of cookie popularity and now for the first time I feel like it's gone completely global. I was in France recently, and I've not seen so many cookies among all of the French Vienoisery. Yeah, and they're just called Le Cucie, which is really funny, Le Broni as well. They're very popular all over. But you are one of the ones leading that Renaissance, and we want to talk all about the economics of a cookie and what actually goes into the pricing, because we've gotten a lot of comments from our listeners talking about how expensive baked goods are. And at the beginning of the pot, I said, it's just sugar.

flour and butter but oh christina i imagine it is so much more than that just oh josh it's so much more first of all amazing french accent and also i think that is such an interesting call out because when i was becoming a professional pastry chef 20 years ago like going to culinary school you studied french technique and there is there was neary a cookie recipe anywhere near the curriculum to the extent that they don't even really have a French word for cookie or brownie, to your point, which is a bar cookie. So is a brownie, a cookie? Yes, it's a bar cookie. Oh, snap. And I think that's fascinating. Oh, my. Rename the podcast. We're doing a spin-off. We're doing a spin-off. Is a brownie a cookie? I might be a cookie's biggest fan. Like,

I wrote a cookbook that's all about cookies that really lures the line of what a cookie can and can't and I think it's really just scratching the surface. But the reason I do what I do for a living and have my whole life is because of the power of a cookie in its inherent humility, the fact that, like, you never get a cookie recipe that makes one, right? It's always a batch of cookies. It's meant to be shared, the power of a cookie, what it does for us, et cetera, et cetera. But beyond the emotion of it and the deliciousness of a cookie, cookies, like, it's not easy.

to make a good cookie. It is easy to make a cookie and a mediocre cookie implicitly or sub-par cookie, but it's not easy to make a great cookie to pay rent on a storefront for any bakery. You got to sell my phrase. I always tell the team's like, you all saw a lot of cookies to pay the rent and the economics of making a great cookie. Well, they're more complicated now than they were almost 17 years ago, 18 years ago, and I opened no far. You ready for it? You want me to just go, you want me to hold you should i put on my like my bifocals and be like okay i let me tell you i would actually i would actually love that we would love to be schooled on it the c fo the c o the c o c o christina and then c o christina and then we can just be a baker okay okay okay so basics of a great cookie right like wrong ingredients butter great cookie

unsalted european style butter so that the dairy is cultured so there's a depth of flavor to the butter before you even start mixing it with these other ingredients to make it greater than some of its parts. Some cookies are better with part shortening, and I don't mean that because you're like shortchanging the experience. You just get a better shelf life if you've ever had like an oatmeal cookie that has part butter and part shortening in it. The shortening is all fat where butter is some milk solids, some water, and some fat. So you're getting more flavor in butter, but you get like a softer tender for a longer period

of time. Cookie, if you can find the right ratio of shortening without forfeiting flavor. Sugar, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, dark brown sugar. There's all honey, maple, there's all different sugar systems that you can bring into place depending on the flavor story of the cookie. Eggs, I don't like a cookie with a lot of eggs, but a little bit of egg truly. And I've gone at every single one of our recipes and questioned every ingredient and the ratio of every ingredient at Milk Bar.

A cookie without eggs, when we go through like avian bird flu or some of these other egg shortages, a cookie without egg is just not as good. If you remove the egg entirely, the texture is out the window. We've replaced the egg in our cookies at times with flax. One, for like people with egg allergies, and-in-an, you can get similar in texture, but you start hacking away at what makes a really great cookie as delicious. The flax just doesn't come with the same richness, even though you can almost reconstruct the texture that an egg brings.

Some sort of flavor. So typically vanilla extract. Is it dark vanilla extract, like your favorite chocolate chip cookie, like that deep, sultry vanilla extract? Is it clear vanilla extract? Like our confetti cookie, where it's light and creamy. And then there's like a world of extracts, right? You can get a brown butter extract.

You can get a maple extract. You can get a fudgy extract, a citrusy extract. I can't even tell you how many extracts we have. We have so many, you can, anything can be a flavored extract that helps boost the flavor story of just the baseline cookie dough before you get to all the inclusions mix-ins. That's usually all the wet ingredients. If we're talking about like a true drop cookie, should have even, should have even backed out there. I'm talking about just like, let's, we're talking classic chocolate chip cookie, drop and bake because there's so many different kinds of cookies. Then dry ingredients, so flour, but flour, all-purpose flour.

Is it high protein? Is it low protein based on the texture of your cookie? Do you, I don't know, is there some like rye flour in it? Are you smoking the flour because you want kind of like a smoke chocolate chip cookie? Is there some corn flour, some oat flour, or some wheatberry flour, whole wheat flour, et cetera, et cetera. Pumperinoco flour. There's so many different dry flowers you can bring in to tell the flavor story texture. Is it a gluten-free flour because it's a gluten-free cookie?

Gluten-free is so much more expensive because what makes up the gluten-free flour hasn't been commoditized. the way that wheat has. So it's just more expensive to grow to harvest to mill down. Then typically salt. Every cookie needs salt. Every bake goods need salt. Not because it's salty sweet, but just to help sharpen the edges of flavor and contextualize it. Baking powder or baking soda, your leaveners, right? Baking powder gives you height. Baking soda gives you breadth, but also those two leaveners, you don't need both, but some cookies use both. They help even distribution of color in the baking oven and then they actually add acid to your cookie dough. So if you ever left baking powder baking soda out, you would know not just because the cookie

isn't either growing in height or breath and because the cookie is like strangely colored when it's baked compared to what happens when you have it in. But you will be like this cookie doesn't taste as good because it doesn't have that slight bit of acid. And then you have all the other add-ins. So inclusions, chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, chocolate chunks, if we're just going chocolate chip cookie. I believe we were talking earlier. Milk powder for me is the MSG of the baking world, but specifically in cookie, it's going to give your cookie a deeper rounder flavor. It's going to

give it more chew if you want a chewy chocolate chip cookie. And then I mean, as the person that was like, I have an idea, let's put all of the things into the cookie, which is what the compost cookie, the classic milk bar compost cookie is, where it's like pretzels, potato chips, oats, ground coffee, butterscotch, chocolate, gram crackers. I think I got it all. But the way we tell flavor stories. To your point, Josh, like the third renaissance of cookie, right? The flavor stories that are coming out in cookie form are all about how we are inspired by, I have made a hot dog cookie, by the way, how we are inspired by something that inspires us to turn it into a cookie. So, like, you could make a malted Oreo milkshake cookie and think

about all the other ingredients you need to then add into that cookie, just wrong. ingredients to make it taste like that. So that's raw ingredients. Then you've got the labor involved with measuring and weighing so that the formula is just right because baking is a science, mixing it, scooping it, chilling it, maybe, depending on it, putting it in the oven, taking it out, cooling it, handing it to someone, wrapping it, putting it in a box, whatever it is. You've got your overhead, right?

So that's the labor of it, but you've got your rent, you've got all your other utilities. You've got to have an oven that works, whether it's gas or electric. You have to have a walk-in fridge or, you know, a single door or double door going. So then all you've got CAP-X, right? What table are you making that cookie on? What mixer are you using? Where did that? Who paid for that oven, right?

Are you depreciating it on your schedule, et cetera, et cetera? And then, of course, you have the packaging of it, right? Like, is it going in a cute little bag? Or you handing it to someone on a cute little napkin? Most people, when you buy a cookie, they aren't just putting it in the palm of your hand. Maybe they're using a spatula to put it on. Like, there's a whole schick to, we want, like, our cookie dream to come true. And that comes with the controllables on a P&L of a cookie to get that cookie to you for that experience.

Nowadays, I mean, even during COVID, like the cottage bakeries, even nowadays, right? You can get a great cookie in the mail through DTC for someone that has foregone a higher occupancy cost, but they're still paying for shipping and boxing and Dan and, Dan, and, tape. How cute is the label? What about the insert that tells you how to store your cookie and what to do with your cookie, et cetera, et cetera? And then you have, you know, usually a small write-off line of spoilages, right? Like maybe a cookie, you know, have you ever, like, taken your cookies out of the oven and you're like, your pot holder thumb accidentally dents a cookie? And you're like, well, I can't sell that. I'm going to eat that cookie, but I can't sell that now. Or cookie breaks when you're handing it to someone or packaging it. Or Maybe you didn't sell all the cookies you thought you were going to do in a day, or maybe the box of cookies didn't arrive on time for someone's big occasion, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a line item of the P&L because you're going to send someone a new box of cookies instead.

But raw ingredients, I'd say, is the biggest piece of why a cookie is so darn. I love listening to you talk about cookies. I could go further, but I saw Josh's eyes be like, I'm not ready for all of this. I was engaged. I internalized everything. I internalized it all. That was my own machine turning on where this was going.

But no, no, Nicole, you have the floor. I just loved it. Fall is the perfect season to invest in yourself. And what better way than learning a new language? Whether you're planning a trip, craving a new challenge, or just looking to make the most of cozy nights in, Rosetta Stone makes it simple to turn just a few minutes a day into real progress. Rosetta Stone has been the trusted leader in language,

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I wanted to ask a question. All of this sort of calls into question of like what is a bakery now? Because you were mentioning cookies by mail and just going DTC. We actually, we have a friend he runs a fantastic small fledgling bakery called Lexington Bakes. Yes. It makes just super

high, high quality cookies, brownies, whatever you want to call them. They're all square for an efficiency purposes. But he was telling me, he was trying to go straight DTC that's direct to consumer for all our listeners out there, except to get on all of these delivery apps that now people

are just using the DoorDash, the Grubhub Postmates to get cookies delivered to them. He needs to be registered as a bakery, which means he needs to have a brick and mortar storefront. Does he have to like get, like, not an S corp, but like he has to get an LLC and everything like that? They seem to have their own guidelines on

what actually constitutes a restaurant that a driver pick the cookie up from and having like a ghost kitchen or a commissary kitchen where he normally does his baking. and then packages it himself, it doesn't exactly count. And so there's these strange hidden overhead costs. And, like, his packaging is beautiful because if you're direct-to-consumer and you're sending them out, that needs to be beautiful and tell a story.

Or if you want to grab attention in a storefront. And so, like, when you're talking about the overhead for, I mean, I remember when Milk Bar hit Melrose in L.A. And all of us, you know, flock down there. It's beautiful and it's well-designed. And there's obviously intention that went into the feeling that you get when you're being in there. you know how much of that like the economics actually factored into that decision like was there any part of you that was like we can just do a mail order business or we can just supply to restaurants

we can just go into stores it's so it's such a great question i mean i opened milk bar in november of 2008 in the east village of new york city and in my mind it was always an in-person experience I mean, November 2008 was like when the economy was, you know, there's no other time in American history or the most recent time in history that the financial health and well-being was as scary in a place was exactly that time. So one would say terrible time to open a bakery, but in my mind, it had to be a physical bakery. Like I wanted to see people. Like my whole point of milk bar was I want to make people happy with dessert and I want to democratize dessert. And so one, cookie had to be on the menu because of the democratization that I think a cookie holds in its size, shape, format. It's Trojan horse for flavor and for so much more.

I wanted to bake for you. I didn't want to bake away from you. I wanted to kind of like bake with you, if you will, and I wanted you to be there. Open kitchen, right? Like we see all of these things now and they seem like they've always been this way. But having an open kitchen where you could actually see the people not just cooking savory food for you, but baking for you. did not exist. Paster departments, you know, they're behind the scenes, they're in the basement, they're in the back, there's no windows. So for me, it had to be in person. On some level,

that's just what made sense in my brain. But because we got so much, like, love and fanfare and support so early on, then I was like, well, if I'm going to democrat, like, I really want this idea of democratization of dessert to, this is true for me. I would just get it, I was also the customer, who's running your customer service? That's another. right. I was our customer service, both on email and on phone. And I would get calls in, right, at random times the day whenever we'd get like a cool piece done about us. And this one sweet woman, I think she was in Kansas was like, well, honey, like I'd be like, well, here are hours. You can come in. And she was like, well, honey, I'm never going to make it to New York City.

I've never been in my life. I've noticed, but I really want to try, you know, I really want to try your bakery. And I took a step back and was like, well, when I left home and went to college, like, my mom would just send the cookies in a care package. She would under-bake them because I like a slightly fudgy center. And so I was like, okay, I'll just put it in, like, just tell me what you want. I'll write down your information. I'll put it in the mail. And we launched the DTC arm of our business in 2009, 2008, 2009.

So this was before DTC was even an acronym. Before anyone even thought about sending food in the mail as a business, before there were any real regulations for it, et cetera, et cetera. I think maybe Omaha steak. I was going to say, it was Omaha States and edible arrangements. Yeah. Or Harry and David. But exactly. Pat LaFrito was not shipping, but then when we did that, we're like, well, that's pretty

cool. It's like we have a spaceship of baked goods that's just orbiting around the U.S. or like a drone delivery service where we can just bring our baked goods to wherever people are and built that part of it. But you're right, Josh, like that part's expensive. Even on-demand delivery, they take a percent. of your sales, right? Like, who's paying, who's paying the Piper you are as a business owner, not as the customer? But there's so many different ways to do business. I mean, I know people

that, like, host little cafes in their New York City apartments. I've seen those. How they do business. Obviously, there's, like, the whole farmer's market bit. You can wholesale to your local coffee shop or where you think people are getting your baked goods. You can go into grocery stores or the little shoppy shops. But you're right. Each of them has, like, different over and headpieces. And a lot of it comes down to both like the LLC, like articles of organization of, are you a legitimate business? And then the other piece of it typically is the health department, right? Like whatever jurisdiction you fall under. And town to town, city to city, state to state, those regulations differ. So I think across the U.S. and to your point,

I was like across the world now, across the globe, you get these really interesting manifestations of cookie shops or bakeries because they're products of ingenuity and entrepreneurship of people that freaking love cookies and believe in the power of a cookie. I'm curious what your margins are in like more acronyms in the CPG part of your business in stores versus DTC versus like in your brick and mortar store. Like how much money are you making from each cookie sale in each of those three realms? So interestingly enough in the grocery store and CPG there is. there's almost no margin left because you aren't just selling your cookie to the Gelsons of the

world. You're selling them to someone that's selling them to someone that's putting them in Gelsons and Gelson's paying a Piper to pay a Piper to pay you. That part of selling cookies is super tricky, which is why you see, I think, far less innovation and far less maybe newcomers that stay that are doing something that is as magical as what we're. we see in the other sectors of business. So that's another way to sort of, you can as a consumer gauge what profitability looks like in different sectors by saying, where am I seeing the most innovation, cool stuff, cool flavors, delicious flavors, and where am I seeing the least? You see the least in grocery because of that. DTC, it kind of depends on how you have the

relationship with your customer. Are you giving them free shipping or they paying for shipping? How cool, to your point, it's like the unboxing and packaging experience. And is that getting built into a handling cost, or is that getting built into the cost of a cookie? Everyone does the accounting bit of it a little differently. In person, the margins are the best provided you have people that are coming in for cookies all the time. Because you're paying, when was it when you worked an hourly job, an hourly job, I think we all started somewhere in the food industry, right? They weren't like, hey, Nicole, you can take the next four hours off unpaid because no one's coming in to buy cookies now. You're going to work under the premise that you are making cookies

and helping the bakery sell these cookies for the entirety of your shift. And rent doesn't decrease based on the number of cookie sales you have. Usually, it depends on your rent structure, whether it's like base or base percentage. Most landlords won't do a pure percentage rent-based deal. But it's basically that it is, in-person bakery has the potential for the highest margin at a certain scale. Then DTC, depending on where you put the dollars and cents and who's paying, and then grocery or CPG, unless you get to a crazy scale, Josh, where you have an entire cookie factory and everything is mechanized and you're at like the scale of Oreo where you do see some cool, you know, like some of the bigger cookie behemists are really

trying to get into the mix a bit, but you can see the push pull of like where they want to innovate and then where they're hamstrung either in mechanization or they don't want to take the risk of building like the robot to make the cool cookie as cool as it could be. And they're like, maybe this is good enough. So much of the innovation, because I'm actually really curious about like where milk bar stands in all of this because obviously you have the Nabiscoes of the world, the Pepperage Farms of the world, who I'm sure they're owned by some sort of food conglomerate or private equity firm, or even like Tate's, to me, is one of the newer cookies that has really been in storefronts for a long time.

Then you have the people like our friend Lexington Bakes, who's, you know, in a commissary kitchen grinding it out of itself. You, I think, are sort of in this middle ground where you are able to innovate. You are able to use still incredible products. And obviously the buck stops with you as far as keeping that quality. But what sort of challenges have you faced with trying to take what is like artisanal and beautiful and frankly very personal? to you and your story in trying to then automate and get to that economy of scale.

I mean, it's such a good question, Josh. It's like 17 years of successes and failures that are like just dotted. It's not a straight line. There's all kinds of dots along the way of surprise to know. And I learned all of this on the job because they don't, they certainly don't teach it too in French pastry school, my friend. They don't have a word for cookie, nor do they have like the P&L and all of the ins and outs of how it's going to go for you. But when I started Milk Bar, I was like, we're going to mix big batches of cookie, bigger than what I know from making it at home or in my free time as a pastry cook or pastry chef.

So we're going to start. We're going to hand mix everything with a giant Hobart mixer. We're going to hand scoop. We're going to chill. We're going to bake because this is, this is, you know, chef-crafted cookie land. And one of my biggest things in building milk bar has always been taking a step back to go. Like, where's our bottleneck? Where's our bottle?

We want to democratize dessert. And as much as sort of like hype culture, Ann Dan has had moments along the way, I would ever want to be able to come in that wants a freaking cornflict chocolate chip marshmallow cookie. And like, for me, there is no greater disappointment than when you get to your bakery that you know and love and trust. And they're like, oh, we're sold out. Like for me, that hurts, that angers me and hurts my heart because I'm like, I will text me. I will go there. I will mix the bat. Like, I really believe when you want that dessert, you should be able to have that dessert.

You are tarred for it. You need it. You deserve it in life. And so in the bottleneck of it, one of the very first bottlenecks of milk bar was we could not scoop cookies fast enough. Or to say differently like me, Leslie Barron's, now Leslie Disher, Courtney McBroom, Helen Jomer and Marr. right like we would you'd onboard a pastry cook the poorest use of me or anyone else that's like a pastry sewer whatever's time is being on the cookie scooping station right like we need to be running

the business but the reality was we were the fastest cookie scoopers we're like we are going to need a bigger boat okay we need a cookie scooping machine how do we find a cookie scooping machine that allows for all of these different crumbs and crunches and damn damn one doesn't exist Josh right like it's only because the big guys are the ones that are defining what the industry standard is, and they're not putting cool stuff in their cookies. So we found this burger patty portioner after, like, long research. So you've got a bunch of gals who are trained pastry chefs learning how to be like food scientists and engineers and we found this like hilarious hamburger patty machine because, you know,

in hamburger paddy land you want to scoop, you want to touch your dough as little as human. possible, right? Or your patty so that it's tender and juicy and in and him. And we found that and that was one of our unlock. So as we've scaled, there is always a push pull. You have to make a bet in order to try and get more of your people, more cookies when they want them, where they want them. And you learn a lot along the way, right? Like you learn everything along the way from to the point of like, ooh, do we want to put shortening in a cookie? It's got such a bad rap, but it makes a better cookie. What's the best packaging that's going to make someone, if I can't hand you the cookie in person at a

bakery. I mean, we bake our cookies in store at all of our, you know, bakeries nationwide. But some people come in and are like, I want to stuff my bag with the cookies because I'm going home and I want to bring 20 cookies in my suitcase. Well, I can't give you the cookies in that like amazingly cute pink boxes. They will not make the flight. You would also eat them all or they'd be broken. Right. So what is the best possible packaging experience? But you don't what the packaging experience in bakery to make people feel like the cookie isn't freshly baked. And we've dotted, we've taken these sort of like chances and risks and asked ourselves these questions along the way. And we've gone so far in both directions. Like we never used to bake

everything on site and never package anything. And then Alan Richmond, crazy food, amazing food reporter for GQ and in all of the publications when we first open. We got mad respect from him. And he's like, I'm going to bring all these cookies home to my neighbors in Connecticut. I was like, oh, my God, this is a dream come true. So they're really going to put us on the map. An hour later, I get the most honest, heartbreaking email from him that's basically like, girlfriend, you need to get it together. Oh, my gosh.

Because these, the cookies, they're crumbled. Like, I can't give them to anyone. I am this amazingly accomplished food reporter and food reviewer. I can't give people, like, you've got to figure out how to get your cookies to people that aren't standing in front of you. So I was like, okay, I have an idea. Then we started and then I was like, we're going to package all of our cookies. And we packaged all of our cookies. And then people were like, it doesn't feel the same, right? Like I want to be able to walk in and have it smell like a cookie. And we went too far into operationalizing it. Or we were like,

we're going to try a new cookie scooping machine because of, and then all of a sudden it made the cookies less delicious because there were less crumbs and chunks and pieces. I mean, I could go on, But it's basically been fine-tuning a recipe for 17 years, and I don't think we're anywhere near done. And I love that part of my job. And it also is the most humbling, harrowing, nightmarish part of the job, too. Because you all know when you put up something that you know is not exactly what I, we can't be like, close the doors, shut down the business. No one's allowed to have a cookie today. I mean, I don't know.

Anyways, these are the things that go through a crazy cookie lover's head on a daily basis. If it's any consolation, Anthony Bourdain wrote an entire chapter in his book, Medium Raw, called Alan Richmond is a douchebag. Oh. And so that's not me calling that. That's simply saying there's an entire chapter devoted to it. So he is very, very blunt with his words. But I think it really...

Well, that blotness is what caused a phenomenon. True, truly. Sometimes blotness works. Blutness works. I think we were kind of existing in a bit of a paradox right now where people want everything on demand, but part of the love for a certain thing. things is almost the exclusivity and the scarcity of it, right? Sure.

So it's like we're living in this weird area where you want something that is artisanal that's handed directly to you from the cookie baker, but also you don't want a crumbly cookie because you're 2,000 miles away in a parish in Louisiana. Yeah, but also can you get it to me in an hour? I'm on an island off the coast of wherever, yes. Yeah, and so it's incredible watching, yeah. That's one of the trickiest parts.

It's one of the trickiest parts of being in business and running a business. I think the thing I keep reminding myself, I think we've always done our best work. I think most people do their best work when they have blinders on, right? Where you are not chasing, my mom used to call it like Mrs. Got Rocks. You're not chasing what someone else has and you're not chasing what you think you should be doing. You are trying to put your blinders and your noise cancelling headphones on and do what you believe

is true. The world needs more of that, more than it needs more of what someone else is doing and the referential spinoffs. because I think that just waters down what is in the world of AI, right? We're going to get so much goodness from it and there's so much scary stuff from it. I think artistically, if we consider cookie making an art, which I do, but not in like a highbrow snooty way, we're going to get more awesome cookie evolution if we can do more of that and stop trying to be everything to everyone all the time.

And it's easier said than done. I think it's easier said than done. But what I would say, like we talk about it in bakeries, I'm always like, I wish we could do a thing where we say to all the people that love cookies and love milk bar and Indian, the like, it is, we care so much about it and we're not going to be able to be everything all the time. And it's hard work, not in a feel sorry for me way, but in a, if you want the best possible cookie, there's a piece of it where you have to trust. it's not a request for respect it's a request of trust in what it takes to get there because if the more trust there is

the better cookie you're going to get every time and cookie you're going to get universally. That was beautiful. Slow clap. For what it's worth, for what it's worth. Just a gal, just one gal's. Just one gal's opinion.

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Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.com.ca. slash Yanex. Tim's new scrambled egg loaded croissant. Or is it croissant? No matter how you say it. Start your day with freshly cracked scrambled eggs loaded on a buttery, flaky croissant. Try it with maple brown butter today at Tim's at participating restaurants in Canada

for limited time. Summer's here and you can now get Almost anything you need for your sunny days, delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered. A cabana? That's a no, but a banana, that's a yes. A nice tan, sorry, nope. But a box fan, happily, yes.

A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. All right, Nicole and Christina, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe. It's time for a little segment we call Opinions are like casseroles.

All right, Christina, you're ready to hear our fans' first opinion about dessert. Be easy on them. You got to be easy on them. I mean, we'll be firm, be firm but fair. So Sergio Ortiz says Hawaiian rules are dessert. Here is where I love dessert so much. I have opinions about dessert, much like casseroles. Okay, good.

And Sergio, I would say if Hawaiian rolls are where you get your like sweet little dirty dessert secret sugar fix, I would 10 out of 10 eat a Hawaiian roll as a dessert. I mean, I'd probably like gild the lily. Like I'd want to like break it up, lather it and like butter and cinnamon sugar and then bake it anew. Like make a cinnamon toast. Is it a sampe? Is it an ice cream sandwich, which is a sandwich? And then, like, there's so much you could do with Hawaiian roll in dessert land. But also, I probably have been there where I'm desperate for dessert.

And I'm like, well, that's sweet. I'll eat that and call it dessert. Right. I mean, it's crafted. I feel like the French are always complaining. One, that could stand alone as a statement. But they're also always complaining about what we've done to their beautiful brioche. It is not for the hamburger.

You know, brioch is like a dessert. It's like almost like an eggy yeast cake. Okay. Very similar with, like, gelato con brioche in Italy. Sure. You know, and to me, Hawaiian rolls, growing up in California, King's Hawaiian, like, that was sold with every rotissory chicken meal at the grocery store. Put a scoop of ice cream in a king's Hawaiian roll. I don't know that you can get a better ice cream sandwich.

Let me tell you what I would do. I agree with this 100%. I take the Hawaiian roll. I cut it in half. I put it in a toast oven for approximately 30 seconds. And then I take peanut butter, probably Laura Scudder's peanut butter, because you know how much my mom loves that. and then random chocolate chips because again ingredient household

so that would be the dessert I would make and also probably a little bit of salt because I love salty peanut butter like a lot a lot and Laura Scutters ain't got no salt no sugar Laura Scutters has no joy you must find the joy in the in the Laura Scutters which I do

I find the joy in it also can we just say King's Hawaiian Rolls yes yes yes Kings Hawaiian Rolls whole business is that you're eating your savory on a dessert item. Yeah, for sure. That's like the TLDR of it, and you can take it on so many dessert adventures. I love it. All right. We got another one. This one is... That's all caps, yes.

This one is from Zach Garber. He says, almost all desserts are better cold. Cold brownies, cold cake, cold cookies, cold pie. I'm really curious about this one, Christina. No. That's enough. Where do you stand at that? What temperature should a brownie be eaten? I'm not saying that dessert, great dessert, isn't sometimes cold. A hundred percent it is, but it is not a universal standard. Sometimes it's room temperature and sometimes it's hot. A cookie should be eaten. It depends on the cookie. At room temperature, if it's a chewy cookie, hot. If you are going for like, you know, a hot out of the oven cookie. For me, it's cookie dough that's warmed slightly in the microwave. It's a little cold. It's a little hot in moments. Obviously cold. But then it's

like milk bar pie is best out of the fridge, but cereal milk is frozen. But cereal milk is frozen because it's soft serve at like 14 degrees Fahrenheit where like hard pack mint cookies and cream, my favorite ice cream, is much colder than that. So I think dessert runs the temperature gamut. It just depends on what it is. You ever had a cold cobbler before? Yeah, it's not as good as a cold pie, I'd say. It's gross. I think a cold pot, ice cold fruit pie, though, ice cold custard pie as well. You like those? I want my pie's ice cold. Oh, no. I want the, and I think even then, like, if the, the, War Cherry Pie, isn't there like a whole song?

Wait, are you talking sweet cherry pie? Are you talking, like, lemon curd or key lime pie or? Those should be cold. Josh, are you saying that you're into cold pie? Very cold. Well, no, not everything. Because I think, like, a cookie, I think there needs to be, like, fresh out of the oven, but it's sat for about 19 minutes, you know, in a window sill.

I agree. Okay, yeah. It's bordering on rooms. But I agree with you that every one of these desserts, in context, has its own, you know, temperature. But I think most pies, I think I want, like, fresh out of an ice-cold diner fridge where they keep next to the pre-packaged cob salads. Oh, no. That's what I want. Like apple, apple pan pie.

Yeah, you go to, you go to Pie and Burger in Pasadena and get their butterscotch and meringue pie. It comes at borderline. There we go. That I'll give you, but I'm with Nicole in, like, I am not so sure about that as a universal statement. I like my, I guess I like my fruit-based desserts to be on the warmer side, like whole fruits, like cobblers, buckles, pies. Oh, but you know, have you ever had an unset brownie? Sometimes an unset brownie, which if your intention is for it to be ooey-gooey, delicious, dreamy, whatever. But if it's like, if you can't pick it up with your hand, because it's so melty-gooey, I think that defeats the purpose.

But if you, but if you set it, cut it, let it, let it. like, I was going to say it in Farsi, like jam, jam-o-jurbeche, which is so random, just get together. And then you warm it up for like 10 seconds in the microwave. I'm down with that. I love it. Plus brownie Sunday, but also, you guys, have you ever just had brownie batter as dessert out of the fridge? Yeah. I don't make the brownie at all.

Yeah. That's dessert. That's where our guy is right, where you're like, yeah, give it to Nicole. That's just chocolate moves, baby. That's just chocolate moose, baby. Okay. Moshe Isaacin says, any cake with fondant, taste very chemically and should be banned.

I think most cake, I mean, you're talking to the lady who was like, we stop frosting the side's cake. We're not going to do it anymore. Everyone, come on. Let's start this revolution. That's right. I think cakes that are covered in fondant are beautiful, 100%. But I want to eat my cake.

I don't want to just stare at my cake. I want to eat it. I'm here for cake. I'm here not to look at the cake. I'm here to eat the cake. I mean, fondant, the makeup of fondant, Most fondant. It's sugar.

There's a few other things in it. We won't get it's not about it's not about as fondot too expensive. We won't get into that as it is. It's sugar. I think it's more that fondant in it implicitly is not meant to taste like anything. It's meant to be a duvet cover for a cake that you can put other things on. You're so right. I think it's about function.

I think the tricky part is we put it over something that people want to eat. So now everyone has to pay about what fondant tastes like, rightfully so. But I think that's where fondant is a little. you know if you want fondon on like your pretty celebration cake fine but then get another cake to slice into like let it be a centerpiece but don't have it be the thing that people are going to eat unless they're just like unless they just want it to taste like basically confection or sugar because that's most of the makeup of fine i had a question from like a baking standpoint does the fondant kind of insulate the cake in a way it does okay so so like not

not intentionally like you crumb coat you normally stack your cake you put this really thin layer of icing on called a crumb coat because it's not meant to be a perfect coat you're meant to see crumbs through it and that frosting acts as glue for the fondant to go over it you have to keep fondant thick enough so that you can't see the chocolate cake below right you don't want it almost translucent you want it thick enough but you're so right Nicole what fondant ends up doing then is insulating the cake in a way that keeps I mean our our man with with a love for cold dessert is probably super into fondant covered cake because do you eat fondant I eat fondant I eat fondant You eat fondon plain. I knew you were going to say, you're sicko. Every day you get sicker and sicker to me. You know

that? It's just, it's kind of, it's like, I grew up a lot of guinea pigs and they'd have like a wood bit that they'd chew on. Why does that have to do it? Because they'd have a wood bit that they chew on and that to me is like fondon. It's my little wood bit. I like the texture fix. You like a sugar baby or a sugar daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy. You're like, give me a sugar cube. I mean my sugar right now. Literally yes. Do you? I'm here for you. Do you know what my most commonly eaten, uh, confection is in our kitchen? We have those little cubes of Thai palm sugar. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just grab them and eat them like candy. So I understand that I'm, but also a Swedish princess cake. That's covered in marzipan, right? It's not a fondon, like a beautiful green. Marzapan is not a fondon. It's like an almond paste. I would eat that. Which is a little bit of almond and a lot of sugar and usually a little bit of almond extract. Like fondant could up the ante if they added some, a flavor powder or an extract to the makeup of fondon. So the fondant actually tasted like strawberry. Marzapam tastes like almond extract.

and all the face. I like that. But the covering on a princess cake, like that almost acts to me as a bit of a fondon, right? I've never made one because I'm a coward. I can't make one? But can we also say like merits of fondant on a cake just outright? It locks all of the moisture in.

So unless someone really overbaked the cake or didn't soak the cake or you're getting generally a pretty nice moisture sponge on the inside because the moisture doesn't have anywhere to go. It stays locked in to the cake. But if you have a dry cake under your fondant, just peel the fondon off, send it to Josh in a cute DTC package. Charge him for it. You understand me.

Charge him for it. He's a happy customer. Yeah, it's fine. Oh, God, I need help. All right, this one is, it might mean fighting words right here, but we'll see. This is from at Juju. Less frosting means better cake. Frosting is how bad cakes hide.

Ooh, I mean, one of the other reasons that we don't frost the sides of the cake at milk bar, I love frosting, I think, more than anyone else. And I'm in like Josh Fondatlandin frosting. Like I am at the birthday party where you get the grocery store cake and I'm like, give me the corner piece and I eat all the frosting off of it. Because most people, I think, don't put enough thought into cake and how good the sponge should be. Every element of the cake should be a knockout hit in a single bite where it doesn't need

it's co-conspirators in the layers of it, frosting, fillings, whatever. that's how a great cake is made. I think frosting and cake have a tricky relationship because if you have someone that didn't really care about the cake and it's just like, oh, it's a sponge, it bounces, look, it holds the frosting, I'm done, then you're going to 100%. That's a mad cake. Choochoo's right, that's a mad cake, and it's all about the frosting.

But I think people should spend more time making an awesome sponge and then an awesome frosting and then one's not hiding between the other. It's a perfect little balanced relationship. I agree with you. The relationship between frosting and cake, is a tricky one. Christina, I have never, that is one of the wildest statements that I've ever heard. I almost thought that would be one of the more simple relationships in the world. Wow, two things that are wonderful that found each other, but you're right. Sometimes

great relationships, you know, they are tricky. You have to put it in the work. They have what the other one means. That's why it's a match made and habit. I agree with you a thousand percent. I think if you put love, care, and attention into your sponge and you put love, care, and attention in your frosting, then both of them can exist within the same universe, and they can be harmonious. It's all about harmony. I have the best opinion I've ever seen. Go ahead.

I'm ready to say it. Sun Devil's 84 says, barbecue sauce cookies made with sweet baby rays are amazing. Everyone should try them. Come on. I'm here for it. This is where I will get so weird in a cookie. I appreciate that it's probably not going on the menu at Milk Bar

because no one's going to buy it. I know this because, we had a soft serve flavor sweet years ago, and it was kind of this time of year. And I was like, it's going to be a backyard barbecue themed soft serve suite of four. One of the flavors was barbecue soft serve. Oh, yeah. And I made that barbecue sauce from scratch every day with so much love and care. Family meal was popping.

No one bought a single portion of barbecue sauce serve. Everyone got their free sample just to be there for the experience. Oh, brutal. But no one bought a portion. Maybe it was the PR of it. Like maybe we should have just called it something different. Also, people are willing to take more risks, I think, in that flavor, in the flavor of things now, like where the flavor comes from and what it is. People are like more like, make me feel alive.

Wow. Yes. Casey Masterpiece barbecue sauce me or baby, sweet baby rays, let's go. Chasing the dragon. I think I'm, yeah, I think you just want to take a little bit of the water out of the barbecue sauce. I'd want to cook that barbecue sauce down a little bit because for it to be fluid, there's water and water is the death of a great

fudgy on the inside, crispy on the outside cookie. It would make a great cake. Otherwise, I'd want to just take some of the water out, cook it down a little bit before I made it into a cookie. Listen, it's not a no for me. You should have shut down samples for that day. You should be like, no samples by a full portion or get the hell out of my store.

I had like a miso caramel the other day, and I was like, I wish there wasn't. about me so careful. There's something to me about almost the, it's like the glutamate of it all. You know, like I don't love, they made that like cheddar ice cream Van Luen did. But the one like very savory ice cream that I had, the dessert at all, that really changed my mind was everything bagel ice cream from Jenny's, I believe. Oh yeah. That was good. Where I was like, I'm here for the candied garlic in it all. I love a salty dessert, but there's something about like a savory dessert that's never quite clicked with me. But I do love getting weird. So I'm down to get weird.

I'm the opposite. I love savory notes and dessert. Like, I love, there was this New York Times cookie. It was the go-choo-jang cookie that, like, exploded. So I love the idea of pushing the envelope. You just got to, if you are able to do the right R&D, any cookie or any baked good can exist if you just, again, put the right care attention and detail into it.

I wouldn't do Sweet Baby Rays. I would actually probably do Casey Masterpiece. So thanks for bringing that up, because I agree. Can I complain about one very specific thing? Hold on. I think Sweet Baby Rays has too much liquid smoke, and I think Casey Masterpiece is a little bit. It's not as smoky. Yeah, no, I agree with that.

That's why I think it would work better. Like a bullseye would never work. A stubs would never work. A stubs would never work. Not sweet enough. A Rufus Teague wouldn't work. In the era where, like, I started, like, really going to restaurants and thinking about them, and I was writing about food for magazines, every single dessert was like, here is a classic dessert item,

except we've added one herb or spice or fermented ingredient that you don't know. necessarily one year. Here's a lovely strawberry tart, but there's a lot of black pepper and time in it. I love that. Here's a lovely chocolate-lava cake. Ah, Chipotle in the face. Oh, I love that stuff. And that was every dessert. And I love it. We needed it. Ah, mustard in your

gelato. I don't care. Yeah. Give it to me. Whatever. It's short. Here's my take on it. What's up? Uh-uh. My take, I'm so with you, Josh. It's the like, I am so tricky because I'm like 100%. Get excited about flavor and experimentation and trying things on and know when something is ready for prime time.

Fair. Most of that stuff is like I want to bottle up that enthusiasm because this is the number one thing I see on menu, sweet and savory across the U.S. dining out, is this mistake of like, I'm so excited about this new ingredient or this new thing. Are they chasing a trend or do they have like noise canceling headphones blinders on, right? Like, is it really coming from them? Are I just excited to try something new? There's nothing wrong with trying something new.

But you have to know how to be an editor and know when it's ready for prime time. And most of these things are like, either this doesn't make sense and the balance of flavor isn't right. Or my palate is blown, babe. How am I supposed to enjoy anything else? And the like, it's just, it might be something for sure, but you have to know when something's ready for prime time. You can't just put it on the menu. You need a teen that's your editor and you need an editing process. And I think that's important.

You need a Josh and Nicole. You guys, everyone needs to hire Josh and Nicole. as the, are we ready for prime time team? Yeah, they're the frosting and the cake, you know? Aw, which one do you think you are? Wait, what was our original podcast name? Oh, butter and the hot knife? She's butter and I'm the hot knife on the hot knife on 97.3.

That was not a proudest moment. Christina, truly, thank you so much. This was such a wonderful time on the podcast. You got anything to plug? What you got going on? Cookies. Just come in and get some cookies, man. We'll ship them to your door.

doorstep, but really like come in for a warm cookie to any of the milkers. But to your point, I'm so with you, it's not warm cookie, Nicole. It's a cookie that's been pulled out of the oven. Was it 18 minutes before you come in and get it? It's a room temperature cookie, 19 minutes was it? It's a room temperature cookie that, you know, came out of the oven and it's cool just enough for you to really enjoy it. It's neither too hot or too cold.

It's just right, and do it because you are part of like the cookie. believe in the power of a cookie and also find more cookies from people because we need more great cookie makers. Amen. There's no such thing as community. A whisper of heat is left. The breath of heat is left in the cookies. Same out. What lines do I have? Oh, thank you so much for sawed by a hot dog in the sandwich. We got new episodes every Wednesday wherever you got your podcast. We got new videos out every Sunday. They know where we are. If they've listened to this far, they know. Call us 833 Dogpod 1 or tweet at us. You have our handles probably. We'll see you next time.

Bye.