Christina Tosi’s Secret Pantry Ingredient for Better Cookies

Two-time James Beard Award–winning chef and Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi has made a name for herself with desserts that are as unique as they are delicious, like cereal-milk soft serve and cornflake cookies. At her bakeries and at home, she relies on a simple ingredient to give many of these treats added complexity.

“My go-to favorite ingredient is nonfat milk powder. People will be like, what did you do to this? It is so delicious. I can’t put my finger on it. And that’s all it is,” says Tosi, who first came across the ingredient when she worked in professional pastry kitchens. 

Here’s Tosi’s case for adding this game-changing ingredient to your pantry — plus other holiday baking tips for your cookies, cakes, and pies.

What is milk powder?

Dry milk is made by evaporating milk into a powder, which makes it shelf-stable. Milk powder was developed in the early 19th century, before the advent of refrigeration, to extend the shelf life of fresh milk, but today its uses expand beyond practicality. “It adds somewhere between a brown buttery note and a caramel note [to desserts] — almost like a dulce de leche note — while also adding extra chew,” says Tosi.

You can find milk powder in the baking aisle from brands like Carnation and Redi-Lac, or buy it in bulk online. Tosi says that whatever brand or type you use, it will be delicious. “Some milk powder is fine or some milk powder is bigger granules, but it’s going to pack the same flavor and textural punch.”

How to use milk powder 

To use milk powder in baked goods, Tosi suggests simply adding two tablespoons to any recipe, making sure to combine it with your other dry ingredients. 

“This works in drop cookie form, in bar cookie form,” says Tosi. “It even works in cake, believe it or not. I add milk powder to my graham cracker crust, pies, cheesecakes…it’s next-level brilliance.” 

Tosi adds that you can give milk powder even more intense flavor by toasting it in the oven on a parchment paper–lined baking sheet at 325°F for 10 to 15 minutes. 

Other baking tips from Christina Tosi

Experiment with extracts and flavors

There’s more to extracts than vanilla or almond, says Tosi, who recommends playing around with baking additions like McCormick’s cake batter extract and rum extract. She also suggests spicing up your recipe — literally. “Take some curry powder and coat your chocolate chips in it [for chocolate chip cookies],” she says. “Think in the box and beyond the box, and then think way outside the box in the spice department.” 

Add crunch

“Don’t forget, we eat with our eyes first but our ears second,” Tosi says, citing the modern preoccupation with ASMR on social media. Satisfy “texture hounds”  by coating cookies in sanding sugar or brushing phyllo dough with butter and sugar, baking it, then crumpling for a next-level cookie topping, she suggests.

Use flat parchment paper

Parchment paper helps cookies to bake evenly and also makes for easier cleanup. “It will allow your cookies to puff and spread in the right ways so that you get that nice little rounded blip instead of becoming flat,” Tosi says. She suggests buying flat sheets online rather than buying it by the spool, which prevents the paper from curling up on the sides. 

Don’t mess with success

Not everything is worth making from scratch. “I’m a Skippy peanut butter girl. I think that makes all the difference in baked goods,” she says. Emulsified peanut butter generally works better for things like cookies, but Tosi also credits nostalgia. She says she tried to replicate the flavor when she worked at WD-50, the fine-dining restaurant from 2001 F&W Best New Chef Wylie Dufresne, but always came back to Skippy.