Popular New York City bakery Milk Bar reveals how to make its beloved layer cakes – and shares why the round dessert should always be cooked in a SHEET pan
- Milk Bar had previously published recipes for its Birthday Cake base and its popular B’day truffles
- Now it has shared baking technique videos on TikTok
- A new video shows how to use a sheet cake to make a layer cake to get more even, stackable circles for stacking
- Once the circles have been cut, bakers can add frosting and toppings
- The bakery, by Christina Tosi, has locations in NYC, LA, Las Vegas, D.C., Boston, and Toronto
Christina Tosi’s beloved bakery Milk Bar has revealed its trick behind making perfect layer cakes.
The bakery — which started in New York City and now has locations in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, D.C., Boston, and Toronto — is know for its signature desserts including Crack Pie, Compost Cookies, Birthday Cake Truffles.
But its Birthday Cake is especially iconic, and now the bakery is lifting the lid on how to make them on TIkTok.
Try it at home! Christina Tosi’s Mik Bar is sharing how to make its beloved Birthday Cakes
Surprise! The bakery’s TikTok account says to make the cake in a sheet cake pan
How to: Then, cut circular layers out of the sheet cake so that each layer is even
‘Your cake will bake evenly and it will be way easier to stack,’ the narrator explains
The Milk Bar Store already has its birthday cake base recipe available on its website, but it only recently shared a demonstrative video on TikTok already been viewed over 188,000 times.
While most people would use round cake pans to bake the individual layers of a layer cake, Milk Bar has a counterintuitive trick: Use a sheet pan instead.
‘Ditch the round cake pans and bake your cake in a sheet tray,’ says the narrator of the video.
So instead of having several individually-baked circles, there is one long rectangular piece of cake coming out of the oven.
Nom nom: Once the circles are cut, frosting can be added between layers
Yum! The frosting is spread out, and then a layer of B’day cake truffles are added
‘Your cake will bake evenly and it will be way easier to stack,’ the narrator explains.
Then, cut the circular layers out of the sheet cake. At Milk Bar, they use cake rings, but the narrator explains that the rims of cake pans work well, too.
‘Then you’ll have perfect, easily-stackable cake rounds,’ she adds.
When baking cake in circular pans, the cake usually rises slightly higher in the center than along the edges — so stacking them requires some extra cutting work to make the cakes stack evenly.
Using the sheet cake trick means that each of the cake rounds will already be flat all the way across.
Who needs an occasion? Milk Bar’s Birthday Cake is one of its most ionic desserts
Try the all? Yes please! The bakery has several other cake varieties including a chocolate Birthday Cake
In other videos, Milk Bar shows how it then plops large amounts of frosting in between layers, using a cake ring as a border to keep the whole thing even.
Finally, the cake can be topped with B’Day truffle crumbles, the recipe for which is also online.
‘My favorite offering at Milk Bar is our cake truffles, spawned entirely from leftover bits and pieces of cake!’ Chef Tosi said. ‘You can choose to follow the recipe, or get crazy, without our guidance, using leftovers to concoct your own.’