Ask Yourself "What If?" with Milk Bar Founder Christina Tosi
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This episode is brought to you by True Classic. The way they became our sponsor is because I loved their t-shirts and so we just called them up and asked them if they wanted to work together. And they said yes! So check out their clothes at trueclassic.com. What's funny about this is I always have this in my pantry. Always. Space ice cream. Always. There's always a space ice cream in my pantry. I love you so much for that. This is...

- 100% going, like over my dead body is this not going to your hot sauce cookie? - I don't know how that will bake. - Me neither, but we're gonna find out. - But hey, what if? - What if? - So a bazillion years ago, I went for dinner in New York City at a place called Sambar, which was a David Chang restaurant. And in the back, they had a little thing called Milk Bar, which was basically the dessert place for the restaurant.

Well, I fell in love with one of the desserts called cereal milk ice cream. And yes, it is the most nostalgic ice cream you could ever eat. It tastes exactly like the milk from the cereal bowl from when we were kids, that sweet milk that we would drink. Little did I know that the founder and owner of Milk Bar would later become one of my closest, closest friends, Christina Tosi. Christina Tosi has gone on to have wild success. We can all buy Milk Bar products in our local supermarkets. You can see her online.

on Netflix and her TV show. She's got multiple cookbooks out, but best of all, Christina is the most wonderful baker because she bakes with love. It is her love language.

Because Christina was in my hometown this week, we thought we would do something different. We would do an experiment. And if there's one thing Christina and I both love, it's the unknown. So this is a live cooking show that Christina and I did. So if you're listening to this on audio, you will hear some clinking and clanking because we are actually in the kitchen. We are actually baking. If you'd like to see us bake...

Go to YouTube, the whole episode is there, or we will do our best to explain everything we're doing. We did something we've never done, it could succeed, it could fail, you'll let us know. But no matter what, I know one thing will happen. You will learn how to make a compost cookie, and you will learn how to make the tastiest beer bread of your life. This is a bit of optimism.

This is a thrill for me personally because you were my first guest on A Bit of Optimism during lockdown. You and I have done this, I think, two or three more times. But I thought you were in LA. How much fun would it be that we actually bake together? You and I have never, that's not true, we have baked together. I was like, every time I come over,

It's not about baking anymore. Simon has an idea that involves food. No, no, no. It's about introversion. It's about introversion. That's right. Because I went to a dinner party at your house and there were lots of people who were all outside being entertained by your front of house husband. And you disappeared into the kitchen, your happy place so you don't have to talk to people. Turns out I was very close behind you and we ended up experimenting and we invented new breads. Mm-hmm.

We also made new ice creams. It was an ice cream loaf. That's like bake club. That's what bake club is. It's like come in, bake with us, learn something new. We're going to set you up for success. And you're the genius because it's putting the things together in your home that will bring you delight that you can share. I've never talked to you about baking because I'm either doing it with you or we talk about other things. I've actually never talked to you about baking. And now we're going to talk about baking. What...

Where was your entry into baking? Was it an escape because you didn't want to play outside with the other kids that you were like, I'm just going to be over here baking. Why baking? Baking, OK. Why not baseball? Yeah.

I love to be outdoors and I love sports, but baking. So my mom was a working mom. She's an accountant. So January through April every year, my grandmas, my aunts would watch us basically. And in my family, the matriarchs bake. That's just what you do in your free time. Where'd you grow up? Ohio and Virginia. I've heard that one. That's it.

And then my mom would ship me off to Ohio to live with my grandma on her farm every summer so that we didn't become city kids when we moved to Virginia. City kids. And I loved it because it was time with them. But really, I loved it because I like cookie dough. Only, I started eating too much of my grandma's cookie dough. And she started doing the math and being like, this is not adding up. This should equal this many cookies. Demand planning in her head.

And she realized I was the culprit and she basically was like, no more baking with me because you keep eating the cookie dough. You're spoiling your dinner, all the grandma things. It was like survival of the fittest moment. And I wasn't allowed to turn on the oven, but I loved cookie dough. So I would, at a very young age, make these concoctions of like, I don't know, flour, sugar, things that I remembered putting in. And it was trial and error, right? Like if you don't put in enough sugar, it's not really cookie dough.

I'd put a raw egg in and be like, "Ooh, this is good." You put too much salt in, not enough baking soda, et cetera. Then I was, then got to the age where I could turn on the oven and still these concoctions would actually start baking.

And that's, I learned how to bake self-taught as a home baker. And then I moved to New York City because I was like, I want to do this for a living. And then you went to, you went to culinary school, became a fancy baker, worked in fancy restaurants. Yeah, because I'm intense. I like, I like the competitive, the inner competitive spirit. I'm going to do it the highest of my game. So here's the thing that I find amazing, which is most kids who discover baking, it's, it's a, it's science. It's following the, following the formula and their first recipes are memorized.

or you read them. But you, you didn't have that. So from the get-go, it was trial and error. From the get-go, you had to learn, like, one egg tastes good, three eggs taste bad. And that's how I learned. That's how I baked. And things crumble or things stay together. Baking was never precious for me, right? Most people, why do they bake? Because they like the control of it, the science, the security behind it. It's hard, but it's accurate. What I love about baking is the opposite of that reason.

The thing, because I've seen, having baked with you before and having experimented with you before, the thing that I love that you do that no one, I've never seen anybody else do, which is usually somebody makes a thing, right? And even if they experiment, it'll either work, it won't work, and they say, ah, next time I'll add this to it. You will have four things going on simultaneously. It's like a conveyor belt. This one's got a little more of this, this one's got a little more of that, this one has less, and you are, you're treating it like...

A, B, C, D and see which one comes out. And that's what we did when we made the beer bread. - 100%. - I remember, 'cause I went and bought the beer.

How many bottles of beer did you buy? We went through a lot of bottles of beer on the wall. And we probably tried, I remember we tried a raspberry beer, we tried a chocolate beer, we tried a stout, we tried like a fancy beer, we tried a not fancy beer. And we did the same recipe with all these beers until we discovered one we liked. That's right. And so for me, baking... Love. I liked all of them. No, love, yeah, to be fair. Yeah.

For me, baking and the approach to life is always walking around with this sense of what if? What if? What if the raspberry one's really good? What if the chocolate's... What if? What if I put pretzels and chocolate together and swirl them? What if I put cookie dough, sweetened condensed milk, Ritz crackers, and Bugles in the oven? Yeah, that sounds great. But there they are. But there they are. I'm looking at them right now. And you never know. And the beauty is... There's a Bugle on a cookie. Yeah.

The beauty is you don't know. And I love that part of baking. You only know what you know and I go into it. Then I'm not disappointed because that's the other bit of trial and error. Being a great chef, a great baker, you have to be so good at disappointment. But you know, even with all your training, you know things that go together and things that shouldn't go together. So how often are you actually disappointed? So often.

Because I want to defy the odds for me like milk bar was built on we're gonna have a bakery and we're not gonna have vanilla ice cream and We're not gonna cover cakes on the sides and we're not gonna make normal cookies that you would find at a bakery And we're gonna make pie, but it's not apple pie So you get cereal milk ice cream and you get milk bar pie that's dense and gooey and fudgy that no we pull it out when it is still dense and gooey and right and

Because who knows and who's to say who gets to make the rules? Where did you come up with the name milk bar to name your company? Okay, it's kind of two parts one milk and bar. Those are the two No, close. No my idea for milk bar originally and still is like my North Star was a modern-day take on Dairy Queen with a bakery case and

Like I knew I wanted cookies, cakes, and pies, but for me it was all about a soft serve ice cream machine. And this is before soft serve was anything beyond what you'd find at Dairy Queen or like a roadside custard stand. - Chocolate vanilla mousse. - Yeah, so like Dairy Queen milk bar, you can see that, right? And then I started Milk Bar originally in the back of a Momofuku restaurant because I was helping Dave build all the Momofuku restaurants and the naming convention that we always had was something bar, right? Noodle bar, sambar, milk bar.

So part of it's like the origin story and then the other part is like the nostalgic origin story. So milk was really your homage to Dairy Queen and bars because you were forced into it. Not forced into it. That was just how I thought. Conventioned into it. Yeah. No, no. But you said all of the things were sambar, mule bar. But it wasn't like it must be this. I just thought.

But that's a beautiful way to pay homage. So you liked it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good. I mean, it's worked for us. What if I said no? It's like, that's part of it, you know? So how much has baking influenced you as a person in life? Your relationships, your friendships, your marriage, your mom-ness, or the other way around? How much does outside life come into your kitchen? It has gone through waves in my baking career. Here's what I know about baking.

Even after all that I said, I thought I knew why I love to bake. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that I actually love to bake. Not just because I love to eat dessert. I thought that was really the motivating factor. And not just because I love the creative outlet of it. But I do my best talking through dessert. So dessert is my relationship to the world, the community. I'm an introvert. The reason I like to hide in the kitchen is because I want to bake you ever. I want you to feel known and seen and loved.

by your not too sweet chocolate cake, right? Like I, that's how I say, I got you. I'm here for you. I love you. I'm sorry you had a shitty day. Happy day, like anything in between. It's your love language. It is. That's why I bake. And it gives me the never-

It gives me the never-ending capability to fall back in love with anything. A simple ingredient, feeling good about a day, being a human in the world. Like, it is my bit of optimism. - I think what I want, I think what's important

what I want to get across is that too many of us think baking is follow the recipe and it's not like cooking. Cooking you can experiment more and baking you can't. There's less room for experimentation because if you change the variables, the science changes, the chemistry changes and it doesn't work. And this idea that getting comfortable with failure

And that baking is an education for getting comfortable with failure. Like, it doesn't taste good, so throw it out and make it again. Like, so what? Just what did you learn from it? When you fail from anything in life, what did you learn, right? Use that. There's always good in something. And for me, if you're not failing, you're not taking risks. You're not growing, right? What have you learned today? I didn't learn anything because I crushed it. How do you define failure? Because nobody wants to fail. Things not turning out the way that I thought they would. And guess what?

That's fine. If not, that's great. That's flexibility. So how has this mentality towards your cakes impacted you as an entrepreneur? Because Milk Bar is your company. Yes. You founded it. Yes. It's had its ups and downs like any other company. You have all the same issues as every other company. Human in the world, believe it or not. So I'm very curious because for me, I can look at myself. I know as an entrepreneur and a business owner,

I know what elements of my personality come and show up, for better and sometimes worse, but I know how they show up in work. Because I'm an artist and I have an artist sensibility. And I love seeing things, I love my senses, I love hearing things, I love tasting things, I just love all of that. I know how that shows up at work. I love the experimentation, I love the messiness, I love the chaos. Because for me, creativity is the skill of finding order in chaos.

Right? Creativity is finding order in chaos. And sometimes that chaos is thrust upon you, market conditions,

And sometimes I have to inject chaos in order to get some creativity out. So what I find in my, for me, for work, when it gets stale, and sometimes I don't realize things are stale until I realize I'm bored. And when I'm bored, I realize it's because there's no, and so sometimes I inject creativity, I inject chaos in order to produce a creative output. And by the way, not just mine, everybody's. This is a very, can I tell you, this is a very chef mentality. Really? Some of the greatest chefs that I worked for

were most drawn to chaos. Some might call it drama, but in a way that was like, if it doesn't exist, we're not alive. We don't feel alive. The spirit of getting something done, the Herculean effort of it, and the sparks that come from that don't exist. I think the difference, at least from TV shows that I've watched about chefs, which probably is a terrible way to make this conclusion, but

I don't want to be the hero. I don't want to inject chaos and then be like, and I put it right. It's not like that. I want to inject chaos and be like, all right, everybody, we have a mess. I don't know what to do, even if I made it. What are you going to do? And I love watching people and pushing people to find creative solutions to the mess that sometimes I make. So what is it about as a baker that

And the way you bake and the style in which you bake, that you can make a one-to-one correlation to you as an entrepreneur and a business owner. The way you make decisions, the way you lead people, any of it, any of it. This is a human business. And if humanity is not a part of what we do, we have failed. And anything is possible.

But what about being a baker has influenced you as an entrepreneur? Like me as an artist, I can see it. I can see where it comes in as an entrepreneur. So what about you as a baker, how you bake, the way you're approaching baking, you can see... You know nothing. Like ask yourself what if and give it a try. It's that sense of possibility. That is like how did we build a bakery that is...

locations all over the place, a care package business across the country, product in the out, like all kinds of crazy stuff. It's because we didn't follow a roadmap and we were just like, what if? But to your point of the creating chaos, if we're not asking ourselves, what if with this anything is possible mentality. And by the way, when you're building business, right, we're 17 years in right now.

It would be smart to keep just doing what we're doing. Sell the icons, sell the classics. Don't iterate, like play it safe, keep it simple, right? - Go with your greatest hits. - Right? - But you still have to sing Respect if you're Aretha Franklin. - 100%. - You still have cereal milk ice cream in the machine. - But if that's all we're doing, the spirit and the heartbeat of who we are, we don't feel like ourselves. We love to do that. And you have to be able to nail your classics every time.

But if we're not experimenting and trying and falling flat on our faces and finding these moments, we're suffocating ourselves. Let's bake. Okay. I want to learn. So you've made something not with me, but I've been in the room when you're making them, which is a compost cookie. And I knew that we were going to make these because I was told, I was given one instruction, which is bring stuff from around my kitchen. Just bring stuff. I have no idea if any of this stuff is bakeable.

- You don't know what I brought? - I have no clue what you brought. - But I brought stuff from around my kitchen. - So I think every baked good, like it's not about us when we make baked goods. It's about what the baked good does for the person that's eating it. Not too sweet. So the compost cookie is a chocolate chip cookie.

When you don't have enough chocolate chips to make a chocolate chip cookie. That was the origin? It's butterscotch chips. It's pretzels. It's potato chips. It's ground coffee. It's graham cracker crumbs. It's whatever. It's anything and everything. I used to make it on this island off the coast of New Hampshire. A bad storm would come in. I had to bake for 600 people breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it was basically the like, ooh.

We're not getting any fresh, so I just go into the pantry and grab stuff. And it became this beloved cookie because people would guess every time. So this is my bespoke cookie. This is your bespoke compost cookie. I also just think it's fascinating what people keep in their pantries. It says everything. It's the food that fuels them. It's the food that fuels your creative engine. I didn't bring kimchi, and it's always in my fridge. That's okay. But you want to know what? I would have gone the distance with you. But I think the food that people keep at home

is the most brilliant insight into them. And I think your taste buds are fascinating. And they're different than mine. Well, hopefully this will fascinate you. This hopefully is a fascinating-- OK, let's see. We're trying something a little different.

Instead of a traditional Host Red ad, I invited Ryan Bartlett, the founder of our sponsor, True Classic, to sit down for a conversation. And it turns out there's a lot more that we can learn from him beyond just how great his t-shirts are. And his t-shirts really are great.

We call this an ad with authenticity. I was obsessed with reading the reviews about what people were saying about the product. And there was a magical moment very early on. It was in the first couple months. This lady hit us up and was like, "Hey, I just wanted to let you guys know, my husband, because of your product, he walks out of the house with an air of confidence now that he's never had, like ever in his life. I spent $49 on a three-pack, and somehow that has translated to confidence in him."

I can't tell you how transformational it's been. He doesn't feel self-conscious about how he looks anymore. He's actually proud of himself. So thank you so much for developing this thoughtful product. It has quite literally changed our lives. And I read that and it just, it hit me. And I was like,

We're not selling t-shirts, we're selling confidence. And like all great companies, what you're doing for your customer, you're doing for your employees. You're building a culture where people feel confident because they have the opportunity to experiment, be their true selves and build a career with you. So one of my favorite things in the world

I brought what I have left. Oh. Lapsang Souchong tea. Okay, so we got tea. Some really fancy tea. My brother-in-law makes the best granola in the world. His name's Brad, and so we call it Branola. Okay. I brought our favorite almonds. Oh, my God. I introduced you to these almonds, which are almonds from Afghanistan, of all things, but they're the tastiest almonds in the world. I had those in the pantry. I have a half-eaten bag of...

- Ooh, those are really good. - Of kettle corn pop chips. I love kettle corn everything. - Getting some play here. - I brought a bag of my Optimism coffee. - Oh, this stuff.

That's the magic. Okay. I'm going to loop these into categories. I think somebody stayed at my house and left these in my pantry, and I don't know what they are. They're wheat puffs. Some sort of wheat puffs, something like that. I don't know what it is. Okay. There are things in here that, believe it or not, this will tell you something. You say, what's in my pantry tells you about something about who I am. What else have you got?

I have a chocolate drawer. I know about the chocolate drawer. So I just grab a lot of bars in the chocolate drawer, everything from crap to really high-end stuff. This is going to be the most primo pop-up cookie we've ever seen. Because I'm an Englishman, I always have English chocolate. I love you that you have a dark Kit Kat. I have dark chocolate Kit Kat. I have Maltesers. I have Cadbury's white buttons. My red box. This will tell you the biggest thing about me. And what's funny about this is I always have this in my pantry.

Always. Space ice cream. Always. There's always a space ice cream in my life. - I love you so much for that. This is 100% going, like, over my dead body is this not going to your compost cookie. - I don't know how that will bake. - Me neither, but we're gonna find out. - But hey, what if? - What if? - What if it works? - That really is compost. - What if? - What if? - What if? - Okay, great, we've got it. - By the way, you talk about what if. This entire, you and I doing a cooking show,

- Oh, that's a what if. - Is an experiment. This could be an absolute disaster, failure. - I'll tell you what, I had a great time. - No. - So, first things first, which one do you wanna choose? Do you wanna do the granola? - Granola.

we got you brad okay so we're going granola malteasers chocolate space ice cream pop thingies and then um almonds simon phill's okay i'm gonna start chopping some stuff up in the meantime you're gonna do 101 when you're making a cookie you got to start with fat and sugar and you paddle them together so i've got unsalted butter

sugar, light brown sugar, and some granulated sugar. We have to say we did not pre-bake the cookies because I literally just showed up with the ingredients. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. So what was the other thing I had to add to this? Just those three. We're gonna start there. Okay, so butter and sugar cream together till it's nice and smooth. You got it. Like 101. It's all about a homogeneous mixture. It's all about scraping down the sides of the bowl to get it going.

i'm very excited right now it's very crumbly just keep it keep it going just keep it going it'll come together you can we'll do this ready yeah really turning up the yeah oh we're making dough we're making dough all right when i was a kid i used to like dipping my finger in the butter and then dipping it in the sugar and then eating off my finger this is honestly baking with children and watching them interact with ingredients is one of my favorite things no i just mean you did it as a kid because

- You looked at it with this-- - Kid. - Kid. - Kid in air quotes. - With this childlike sensibility, right? - Yes. - You ready for this? - What's that? - See this? - No. - This is glucose.

It is a significantly less sweet inverted sugar compared to corn syrup. But we put glucose in all of our cookies at Milk Bar because it guarantees you're going to get a nice, dense, fudgy-centered cookie. And because there's water activity in it, it guarantees that your cookie stays nice and moist and fudgy for multiple days.

Did I ever tell you that I think that the Great British Baking Show is the greatest television on television? Did I ever tell you that? Because-- Second to your show only.

- Second to your show only. - Because it champions the spirit, the true altruistic spirit of a baker. - To me it's the way life should be, which is we can compete against each other. It's a show with winners and losers. Somebody will be declared a winner. Every day somebody's thrown off the show. It has losers, and yet even though it's a competition, they help each other.

And that to me is the spirit of what life should be. We can compete against each other and help each other simultaneously. They're not mutually exclusive. Also, you can just compete against yourself. Like, we don't need a loser to have a winner. No, but the fact is it is a competition in that case. Oh, so that's the ice cream sandwich? The space ice cream sandwich? I will admit I prefer the Neapolitan. I'm kind of into this. It's going to give us a cookies and cream moment. Yeah, yeah. We've got a real fun little situation happening. And then...

Do you feel like you have a nice homogenous mixture? It feels pretty homogenous. It feels nice. You don't have any specks of... There's a lot of homogeneity going on here. Okay, great. You gotta put all the dry ingredients together before you... Oh, I fucked it up. No, you're fine. But I will tell you when it makes a difference and that will... You didn't mess it up, but... Shit. Also, this is fun. Thank goodness this is your kitchen and not mine. This is what... Flour just went everywhere. It happens. Can I tell you even to this day...

I'm spilling, I'm mixing, I'm dropping an egg. It all happens. It happens. You know what? Let's just leave the mess. Mess is good. Mess means we're living, man. Apparently, in Chinese food, if you leave a mess, it means you enjoyed your meal. Highest compliment. So I am... Okay. Whoa, whoa. Do it again.

So we want a tender, we want the cookie to be on this spectrum, which means as we add the flour, we want to mix it as little as possible. Because the more we mix it, the closer it gets on the spectrum to bready. Oh, got it. Which is okay. So let's scrape this down, and now we're going to put our mix-ins in. You want to taste some dough? Yeah. It's a good base. That's good. Is it too sweet? I didn't screw it up too badly. You didn't. For me, this is...

This is why I got kicked out of the kitchen. Why? This moment. Because you would stick your finger in it? Because once I have one bite of cookie dough, I have to like take two grown-up steps away from it now. Wait, wait. This is very tasty. I can taste the brown sugar. It's so good. Yeah, I like brown sugar. All right, so we're going to add some goodies. Okay. It's as much or as little as you want. Well, does it all just get thrown in? Yeah, and we're going to let the heft of the paddle...

break some of these bigger pieces down. What I love in a compost cookie-- - So we're putting in my leftover kettle corn pop chips. - It's gonna be good. - Those are tasty. Okay, this is the most exciting one of all. That's just gonna be huge and chunky though. - No, no, no, it'll break down, I can see it. - You think? There's a piece in there. Why don't you eat it? - Do you need it? - No, just eat it. So we have now put in the, now we've put in the ice cream sandwich, sorry, the space ice cream sandwich. We're putting in some granola.

Homemade family granola. I think this one's gonna be the reason you really like it. I think so too. Then lots of dark chocolate, very fancy dark chocolate. 85%. Bunch of Maltesers. This is a fun one because you're never this untidy about how you think about anything. You've absolutely got me wrong. Well, you're intentional. Everybody thinks I'm neat and organized. No, no, no. I know you're not neat and organized. It's the biggest surprise everybody has of me, which is I'm messy.

But look at this, but you're like, this isn't how one should bake. You think baking is a certain way and I'm like, no, no, no, it's more free, let's make a mess. This is true, this is true, this is free form baking. You're like that in these other places and that's where your brilliance comes out. Oh, yeah.

This is ridiculous. So now we just turn on the mixer and it sounds like it's the mint mixer with what's going on there. It's never gonna be homogenous, right? Look at this. This is either brilliant or disgusting. I can't figure it out. It's your taste buds, babe. No, it's just the random stuff I brought from the kitchen. It's just random. Okay.

to harken back to Christina's childhood. You're staring at it like it's-- - Look at it. - But what are you staring at? - Well, I'm staring at-- - 'Cause what I see is a glob of mess. What do you see as a professional baker? - What I love about it

is that when I look at it, I see texture, I see color, I see flavor, and I see possibilities. So I see these big pieces of Maltesers, these dark chocolate balls that I know are filled with this malted milk crunch, but some of them have broken down. All of your popcorners have broken down into much smaller pieces, so I know I'm going to get a little corny.

The optimism coffee is speckled throughout, which excites me because I know it's going to be bitter in a way that's good for your taste buds. But it's very hazelnutty. It is. But I'm not mad at that because then you get all the nuts and the seeds from the granola. You get these chia pops and these big and small nuts.

that are all super earthy. And then you have these still pretty giant pieces of space ice cream. - Yeah. - And I love that 'cause they are the total wild card of how will they bake. - We have no idea. - We have no clue. - If they'll melt, they'll keep their shape. - But you wanna know what? Let's do it. We're gonna scoop and bake, babe. - My favorite thing about this is for the number of years you've been baking, that here I am, something is gonna happen that you have no clue and you've never done. - I love it. - That brings me joy. - I love it.

- Okay. - We learn together, we fail together. Like that's also the spirit of team, right? - But this is why it's fun I think to bake with somebody. - Okay. You got a scoop, I got a scoop. So here's my thing in scooping. One, baking 101 when you're making cookies. You want to use a cookie scoop because you want all of your cookies to be the same amount so that they bake evenly. - I've always used a spoon and it's never worked. To use an ice cream scoop is kind of genius. - Ice cream scoop is the best. So I'm going to do kind of an oversized scoop. - I'm not.

Well then I, well then you're going on your own tray. Because they won't bake evenly if they aren't the same amount. Oh. Because they're going to go in the oven on the sheet tray for the same time. Do we flatten them or leave them? I don't, no. I don't want to flatten them. Because I'm really curious. They look like giant ice cream scoops.

- Of the most random cookie dough. - Yeah. - You've never thought of. - I've never made cookies so easily because it's always difficult. This ice cream scoop thing is a game changer. - So I'm gonna take your cookies and I'm actually going to arrange them with like two to three inches between them on the baking sheet 'cause they will spread when they bake and you wanna give 'em enough space.

You could get more on there. I know I can. I wanted to make sure you had enough. I'm really gilding the lily in the size of my scoop. You're the best. And you know what I realized? It really doesn't matter that I break my fingers because they're going to get in the oven and fire cleans everything. You're going to be fine. Yeah.

Okay, great. Let me do one more of mine. Ooh, I got some big popcorners. Now this is the ultimate. Look at the bottom of this bowl. It is just littered with great ideas and flavors and texture. I'm licking the spoon. I'm licking the bowl. Okay, great. This is, I know you're having a really good time because you've lost yourself in it.

For me, baking is like my favorite activities in life. Baking, going for a hike, running is the like, you lose yourself, find yourself. Yep. You haven't, what have you thought about the rest of life? What have you thought about what your hooda, what a coulda, shoulda? This is good therapy. We have a giant mess of flour and cookie dough and crumbles of all types all over this prep table. My dreams and ambitions are all over the table. And that is, you're all baking's a science and I'm all baking's a

- I know, this has made me very happy. I have a renewed love or a new found love of baking 'cause I always thought it was like getting the ingredients at the right levels. So let's just go through what's in this fantastic cookie. - A bit of optimism, the compost cookie. - A bit of optimism, the compost cookie. So we have flour, salt, baking soda, baking power, egg, glucose, brown sugar, white sugar,

All mixed together. Butter. Butter, lots of butter. Then the added ingredients are kettle corn popcorn popcorners, dark chocolate Maltesers, which are malt balls from England. We have fancy dark chocolate, just a bar which we cut up. We have my optimism coffee that I collabed with Phil's, which we put in here, which is amazing.

That's such good coffee. We put Branola, which is the homemade granola that my brother-in-law makes. We have space ice cream, which is freeze-dried ice cream that you can buy at any science museum. If it wasn't part of your childhood. That's when I first discovered it, and it has been in my closet ever since. All right, so we're going to take these to the oven. Covered in my cupboard ever since. Your cupboard. $3.50. $3.50.

Eight to ten minutes. Mine are going to bake a little longer because I made really big hunks of cookie dough because that's just my personality. So 350 degrees Fahrenheit for eight to ten minutes. That's it? Yeah, that's it. Oh, that's easy. I like mine overcooked. Well, then we'll leave them

the same amount of time do you know that about me like when there's a when there's a chocolate chip cookie recipe that says 10 minutes or 20 minutes i do 40 this is my face okay i promise to still love you even though i know that like it's that's against everything i believe in i it's not like it's kind of like tea like i'll drink tea however you give it to me but if i make it myself it's gonna be a very specific color but it's the same cookies same with cookies i like cookies however you give them to me but if i make them myself i'm overdoing them i like them i think it's a

- No, you know, I can tell you what it is. I like them right before they burn, that dark, dark, dark brown, 'cause everything's so caramelized. That's why-- - It is! - Yes! - It's a depth of flavor. - Thank you. - Come on. - Is that the beer? - We're making beer bread. That's Sammy Smith's. - That's that? - Yeah. - Oh, you went and got it? - The clock here's open. Do you want an excuse to be drinking at work? - No, but that's so good.

- Oh yeah, that's why I was like, which one should we do? - So this is important. We're about to make beer bread. Beer bread, so I discovered beer bread many years ago where it was made for me and I asked the people who made it for me to give me the recipe and they did. I couldn't find some of the recipes. There was some sweetener in there I couldn't find so I just started using honey. And I used to make beer bread all the time. Then I was with you and I was like, "Hey, can we make beer bread?" And you're like, "Hey, I've never made beer bread." And I was like, "Well, let's make beer bread "'cause it's idiot proof and I can make it." You made one tweak to my recipe

instead of flour, self-rising flour, which has been a gift because now I get a little more, because it's such a dense bread, it's a little dense now and it raises a little bit. And I've experimented for years with so many different beers and we did that one night of beer, beers on the wall, and we discovered that the best beer for beer bread was, what's it called? Samuel Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout.

It's a good beer. It is a good beer and it has existed since 1758. Oh, God bless. Can I tell you that I also, because I love to ask the question what if, like a month or two ago, just started going at not just beer bread but stuff like what if I put a ripe banana into a chocolate stout beer bread and then I took it as far as what if I take, what are other brews? Kombucha.

What if I make a kombucha beer bread? Okay, it's going to be sweeter and a little bit more berry for it and then add some berries in it. My kids are obsessed with, it's not even kombucha beer bread, but what then is it? It's a very bougie, bougie, bougie, bougie bread. But the thing that I love about beer bread and this, and this, this, I probably shouldn't say this on the air.

because this is what I do, but for Thanksgiving, everybody brings something to Thanksgiving, and I'll make one, two, or three loads of beer bread, and I come in and people are like, who made the bread? I'm like, I made the bread. And people think I'm kneading dough and I'm spending all day. Making beer bread is about...

It's about five minutes of mixing ingredients and then putting it in the oven for about, what, an hour? A little less than an hour? That's all beer bread it is. It is absolutely idiot proof. It's reverse engineering what makes bread bread, right? It makes people... The joy that I give people thinking that I made bread and they don't realize that I did it like 20 minutes before I came to Thanksgiving.

And it's because you're taking all of the elements of bread making, but you're reverse engineering them in your favor, right? So the yeast is already in the beer. It's in the beer. It's already alive and well. We don't need to wake it up. Okay, well then let me put this in the micro real quick. But I've got our salt, I've got honey if you want honey, but then I saved some room temperature salted butter over here for us just in case. Okay, well I always melt it. Okay, great. So I pour it in. Great. So I'll put this together. So I'm putting the flour, which is self-rising flour,

into the bowl. I'm now putting the... Which salt do I use? I'll use the salt. I put the salt into the thing and mix those together. I'm still making a mess even though there's no mix master. Christina is melting the honey and the butter while I will add the beer very slowly. Slowly pouring the beer into the flour. How's it going, chef? Good. Slowly adding the beer.

into here. Perfect. Alright, I'm grabbing our cookies because they look really good. Are they already done? Almost. So basically you can make a compost cookie in less time than it takes to mix a bowl of beer bread. It smells so good. I know. Okay, so it's now getting, it's very gluteny and gooey. So what should, let's add a little bit of butter.

Add butter and I'm gonna add, is this honey? I'm gonna add the honey. So I always melt the honey in the microwave. - Oh, I just did that. She's liquid. - And I do the same thing with the butter just to make it liquid, to make it easier to stir in. No other reason. So adding the honey. Okay, the honey is now in. I recently discovered silicone bread things. - Oh, silicone molds are so nice 'cause they have easy release. - So easy, so easy.

- All right, I'm gonna give our loaf pan, and by the way, I'm a really big fan of an eight by four inch loaf pan, 'cause you get a taller beer bread loaf. - Now, am I gonna, what am I doing to it? Can I, one can over-knead bread. Can I over-stir beer bread?

I think to over-stir beer bread, you'd have to be at it for seven plus minutes. It takes seven minutes to fully develop gluten in a traditional bread recipe, so you'd have to really go at it. That's so specific. I got your back. I know. Seven minutes. The scientists are my sweet food scientists of the world. The Harold McGee's of the world defined that for me. Seven minutes to fully produce gluten. Once it comes together in a mass, seven minutes.

Christina gave me an aluminum nine, what are these? Eight by three, eight by three and three quarter, whatever. Bread pan, loaf pan. We sprayed it with some sort of spray thing. And now I'm putting my dough into the pan. There we go. In it goes, very gooey looking. I've made this many times and it's very good. I make it every Thanksgiving.

because it's easy and tasty and a crowd favorite. Okay, I'm just flattening it out a little bit for no reason. And then I'm gonna add a little butter to the top. I always save a little bit extra just to add to the top because it makes it shiny and tasty. And now I have to wait here patiently for Christina to come back 'cause I don't know, I guess I can go back to the oven. Okay, I'll go back to the oven. All right, compost cookies. So we're gonna do two things. We're gonna do the magic of television.

We have our actual compost cookies that we actually made. And here they are. You want to put those over here? Yeah, I do. We actually made, and we did the magic television where you pre-baked a loaf of bread. Yeah. Because otherwise it would take too long. What do you think? We taste the bread first, and our cookies have a minute to kind of cool down. Will you make me your perfect bite so I can taste it through your eyes? Okay, so. I'm experimenting here. A nice room tempi butter, some salt, a little on top.

I love salt on a little piece of bread. It's again, going back to my childhood, my grandfather always put butter on his bread and always put salt on the butter. And to this day. No matter what. Yeah, so it's somewhat tasty and somewhat nostalgic for me. Okay, cheers. Cheers. To friendship. To friendship. It's so good. It's so simple and so good. Oh, that salt when it comes around and like dances on your taste buds. And that chocolate beer.

The acid of that chocolate beer. You know me. I like sweets, so I'm going to put some honey on this, babe. Mmm. That is so good. Should we try one of our cookies? Yeah, for sure. Do you like a fresh out of the oven cookie? I do. But you like crispy. That's my only... I let my cookies cool. So, we've got some... This I'm very excited about. I love it. Look at the peaks and valleys, the texture of these cookies. So, we got some thinner crispiers. For me. Some taller gooeyers for me. Which one do you want to try?

- This one. - That, okay. - All right, so we're choosing one of mine. More cookie dough, same bake time, but we've got some real goo in the center. - This has got some crunch in it. - Chew, right? - Crunch, chew, it's got all the things. - Oh, it's gonna be a real culinary adventure here. Wow. For me, this is, I know you're abhorred by this, but there's like, there's a little inner stripe of just cookie dough, warm cookie dough. It's not a Simon Crisp, it's a Christina Goo. Cheers.

Oh my god, it's a good cookie. The coffee. Mmm. That works. Oh my god, I like this cookie a lot. You know the thing that would make this perfect? What's that? It was crunchy. Look how good! Yeah. Ooh, there's something... That's a good cookie. Mmm. This is a sellable cookie. I purposefully thought of... If you want to sell a bit of optimism cookies in your stores... You'd let me? You feel free. Wow. I just have to get my brother-in-law to start making granola. Granola. A mess. We will give the recipe in the notes. 100%. Do your kids like to bake?

My kids, each of them is different. One of them, air quotes, likes to bake because she's here for the cookie dough. She's here for the Simon Sinek butter sugar. She's her mother's daughter. Yeah.

The other one loves to bake because he truly loves, from what I can tell, he truly loves bringing something to life. He loves the act of creation. - Does Will like baking or does Will like eating baked goods? - No, Will has no interest in baking. Will has every interest in, "Honey, can you put one of every cookie on a plate and bring it to me the movie's starting?" Like this is, but you know what? That's what makes a great relationship. - Well, it's your, I know, so your love language, I remember I came to your house for brunch

And because I know who you are, I said, can you please make biscuits? Because I love biscuits for brunch and you're Christina Tosi. So to have your biscuits would be amazing. But because you're Christina Tosi, I expected a biscuit. We got five different kinds of biscuits.

We had ones with bacon, ones with cheese, ones with chives, ones with... What if? I mean, the number of bits... And then, so, which is awful, because then you have to eat them all and compare. And you have to eat them again, because you're like, I don't know, maybe I like this one better. That was a really rough day for you. It was a rough day.

I love when people come over to my house and ask for something because to the point earlier like that's why I love to bake. Now I know that it's your love language. It brings me so much joy. Five different kinds of biscuit. I mean you don't get more love than that. You're not questioning whether you're feeding people what they want to eat. You know you are. Yeah. And you're giving them permission to eat six different biscuits. It's so good. So here's what I've learned. I've learned that there's one thing better than baking, which is baking with friends.

I've learned that... Do you know the whole thing about, like, Duncan Hines cakes, the history of those? I think it was in the 50s, they came out with powdered cakes, and all you had to do was add water, and you could make a cake. And it was a failure.

because people were embarrassed that they didn't do anything, they didn't bake the cake. So they changed the chemistry of it and they made one difference, which is I think you add an egg. You add egg, oil, and water. You add egg, oil, and water. They changed the chemistry so now you add water, egg, and oil and now people can honestly say, I baked a cake.

because they mixed in an egg and some oil and of course it exploded. So the idea that people can bake a cake, bake something for someone as a sign of love and putting in a little effort, right? Because with no egg and no oil, they felt that there was no effort.

And what I'm learning from you is I've never... One of the reasons I don't bake by myself, unless I'm baking just almond cookies for myself at night, but they're easy, is because I don't want to get it wrong. And what I've learned here is it's nothing about getting it right or wrong. It's experimentation and to be able to say...

I just put something together, I threw some ingredients, and the compost cookie is perhaps the most lovable cookie in the world because you literally can't screw it up. And some will taste better and some will taste worse and some will prefer this and some will prefer that. But this cookie is, compost cookie doesn't do it justice. It's a cookie full of love. And so this was wonderful. And I got a beer bread out of the deal. And we got so many seven minutes in there.

So many seven minutes. So eight minutes. We have so many eight minute blocks in there. So many eight minute blocks. That, yeah, you and I talked about that eight minute story. So in one of the episodes that you came on a bit of optimism, we talked about what the value of a friend was. And I told you the story that happened with my friend Maria, where she was going through a hard time. I hadn't seen her in a while. And I'm at her house. And I was like, how are you? She's like, I'm better now. I'm like, what do you mean better now?

She's like, "Well, I had a hard week last week." I'm like, "Well, you had a hard week. Why don't you text me?" She goes, "I did text you." I'm like, "No, you didn't." And instead of being sympathetic, I got mad because to be of service to our friends is a gift and denying the gift of being in service to my friend. And she goes, "I did text you." And I pulled out my phone to prove that she didn't. And it said, "How are you? What are you doing? Want to come over?" I'm like, "You mean these texts? The ones that sound like every other text you send me? How am I supposed to know that's a cry for help?" And she had read this article that all somebody needs to feel not alone is eight minutes of time with a friend.

And so we came up with a code which is, do you have eight minutes? And that basically means I need you. And anybody can step out of a meeting for eight minutes. And you're not going to solve the problem. You're not going to be there for the hour, the hour and a half. But to make someone feel not alone for those eight minutes is everything. Somebody sent me a picture recently that they were so inspired by that story that they made hats for all their friends that say eight minutes on them. Like you're my eight minute? You're my eight minute friend. You're in the eight minute club of my life? Like you're my eight minute friend. Isn't that amazing? Yeah.

And by the way, the eight minutes can be literally making a compost cookie. Literally, it takes eight minutes. And so you and I have talked about this before, but you and I are and have been eight minute friends to each other. And I am very grateful for that. Through the years, the feeling is mutual. Best.

All right. Let's just go eat. That's it. Can we just go eat everything now? I've been staring at these the whole time. There are a set that you actually made, but I want to eat them all. Bugle bars, Greta's. All right. They're all gooey. Why don't we cut and have the whole crew come eat? A Bit of Optimism is brought to you by The Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbinius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson.

If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simonsenic.com. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.