I signed up and completed Christina Tosi’s Monthly course! Christina Tosi is the creator of Milkbar, which is an epic baking empire. You probably have seen their iconic cakes on Instagram without even knowing it. She is super cool, kind of hipster, and I love following her. I actually have her cookbook and love it! I’ve followed her for quite a bit so when I saw that she was offering a baking class I was immediately interested.
I started the class at the end of March and completed it at the end of April. The class is 30 days long with assignments to be completed each day. It was divided in three parts, each around 10 days long. The first part was cookies, the second part was pie, and the third part was cake. If you're wondering why it's divided into those three parts, it's because those three things are a big part of Milk Bar. They're famous for their cookies and most famous for their Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow cookies. They have a pie that is called Crack Pie and that was the first thing that Christina Tosi created that really started her empire and their Milk Bar Birthday Cake is just iconic!
First thing in the morning you unlocked the lessons to be completed that day. You were able to see descriptions of the upcoming three days and what those days assignments would entail. This allows you to plan for your week but not get ahead of yourself. Monthly also places you into a peer group which I thought was the coolest part of the class. You become a part of a group and you share feedback on the class as you go through the courses. There were about 20 people in my peer group and we posted updates, asked questions, and when we completed assignments we could share our finished product with the group. Sometimes a day's assignment would be to share an update or give feedback to some of your peers. I liked the peer group because you got to see what other people were doing to help them succeed in the class and use that to help you succeed. You also got to ask for feedback and share your thoughts with others.
The course I took cost $250 and I had to purchase my own ingredients and the required equipment. That was a lot of money but I am still able to access all the videos and lessons from the class anytime I want. Once you sign up for the class you have access to it forever. Monthly also offers tons of different courses such as a music producing course with Kygo, songwriting with Charlie Puth and many others for all different interests such as painting, engineering, and dance. At first I thought the classes would be live like in a Zoom forum but they were not. The classes were pre-recorded. I found that to be both good and bad. I appreciate that I could do the classes at my own speed and there were no specific times I had to log on. I could make it work into my schedule. But, because it was not live I did not get any personal feedback from Christina Tosi, and there was no way to ask her questions.
I did my class during the middle of my school year. Over the thirty days I had a week off from school and I took an additional four day trip to Florida. My trip didn’t really affect the class because one assignment was to offer feedback on my peers' work which I could do in Florida, and the other assignment was to bake a pie which I had two days to complete. I did that the day I came home from my trip in addition to the assignments from that day. It was easy to get back on track. I did enjoy the class and was able to get the most out of it. But at some points I was really overwhelmed with school and taking the class because I did not want to fall behind in either. It was important to me to not fall behind in the class because I really wanted to take this class and get the full experience which included staying caught up. I did not find it too difficult doing both the class, school, and tennis which in the winter I play three days a week. However, I was in a good place in school, just after midterms with plenty of time before finals, so my workload was manageable. If you were to take a class, evaluate your schedule and make sure you will be able to fully commit to this class. If you are going to spend all that money you want to be sure you get the most out of it.
I wish I was prepared and knew what to expect because the first week or so was very overwhelming. Once I became used to the workload and the routine I was able to enjoy the class a lot more. Some days I would have to watch two videos each about 45 minutes long. I was not prepared for that, but once I got used to it it wasn't too bad. Our first assignment was to bake cookies along with a video which took about three hours, and because I didn’t know that, I started later in the day and finished late at night. Again, at first it was a lot but after that I knew the next time I needed to bake I should start earlier and could plan better.
The first 10 days we focused on cookies and we did a follow along video on how to make her Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow cookies. This was super cool because even though I had her cookbook I had never made these famous cookies before, and I got to make it alongside Christina Tosi and learn all the tips and tricks! They became a family favorite! Once we completed our cookies we were told to share them with our peer group and tell a little bit about ourselves. I posted them at 10 at night and right after I was getting all these positive and nice comments! It was so cool! The second part of the cookie lesson was to find a flavor story, then prototype different versions of our flavor story and then finalize our own recipe. I had such a hard time finding a flavor story. I ended up with a cookie that I wasn't thrilled with but I got to learn the process of how to create your own recipe. This class taught me it's not as difficult as you might think. I will definitely be creating my own recipes using all the skills I learned in the class to create my own recipes in the future.
For the pie and cakes part of the class we made Crack Pie which was AMAZING and the iconic Birthday Cake. I had actually made Milk Bar Birthday Cake before but making it along with the video made it taste and look 100 times better. We then used the same process of finding a flavor story, prototyping, then developing our own recipe to create our own pie and cake recipe. By the end of the class I had a salted caramel potato chip cookie recipe, mocha pie recipe, and a neopolitan cake recipe!
I am so happy I did this class and if there is ever another Monthly class that sparks interest I will totally sign up! I took a lot away from it, like better time management and it helped to spark my creativity! I learned that baking is so much more fun and not as restrictive as I thought. You can play with flavors and ingredients as much as you want. It was also really fun to do something totally new and have a structured way to learn new skills. I was really happy with my experience and would definitely recommend doing Christina Tosi’s class if you like to bake, or any other Monthly class to expand your creative side!