Member Reviews
What a wonderful thought! As a member of a large family, it's always my job to bring the dessert to family events. Everyone is always happy to see me and I've always thought it was for my desserts, but it doesn't really matter. If dessert is what makes everyone happy, then dessert is what they'll get. Christina Tosi has given the idea lots of thought and she makes some excellent points.
I remember watching Christina Tosi on Chef’s Table and loving her culinary style. Her memoir was so full of joy and creativity.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. However, I am no longer interested in pursuing titles on this subject.
I've been a fan of Christina Tosi and Milk Bar since I first heard about Cereal Milk. When I went to NYC this was one of my top places to visit. Great story of how Christina got started, worked with David Chang at Momofuku, all the way to starting Milk Bar and building out her recipes.
Christina Tosi is everywhere lately, and for good reason - her work ethic, creativity, and ability to connect people through food is what makes her shine, and all of that is evident in her memoir. I loved reading about her approach to dessert and how kindness, family, and joy are really at the heart of why she has build her life around baking. If you are expecting a recipe book, you will be disappointed, but if you are looking for a book to inspire you, teach you about Tosi's path to success, and make you smile, then this book is for you.
This was a fun read! I think this book would make a great gift for people who love to bake or really love Tosi's baked goods and brand. I feel like she is everywhere now with the Netflix show and this book!
Part memoir, part motivational self-help, part cookbook, this book crammed so much in! I fell in love with Christina Tosi when she was a judge on Master Chef Junior, and we got to know her a little better when she was the subject of one episode of the documentary show Chef's Table...and of course we've sampled the mass produced Milk Bar Cookies when we see them in our local stores ;-) So of course I was going to pick up her memoir when I saw it pop up on NetGalley. I was delighted to discover that she grew up in Ohio like me, and in a nice coincidence had her only daughter around the same time I had mine. Her ever present optimism shines through the book and truly makes the reader want to follow her advice to make the world a better place - whether that is through baking cookies or whatever other hobbies we hold dear.
While I am a fan of Milk Bar and desserts, I can't say I went into this thinking, "oh I LOVE Christina Tosi!" It made it a bit difficult to enjoy this cookbook/memoir. I didn't read this one cover-to-cover because I didn't find it really caught my attention very well. But I flipped through bits and pieces, especially in regards to the recipes and things. All in all, I would recommend this to someone more interested in baking than I am.
This was definitely more of a self help book with recipes thrown through out this. But, Im not mad at it. There was alot of positivity. But nonetheless it was still an enjoyable read.
Besides how can a book go wrong when there are desserts in it?
Thank you for this eARC for an honest review!
I love how passionate Christina Tosi is about dessert and how she shares that as a way to make life sweeter (not just when you are eating a brownie, but yes eat the brownie and enjoy life!) A sweet memoir with a positive message.
I liked this book, I wish it was better laid out, but I love Christina Tosi and it was still very good and worth reading!!
Dessert is a celebration, and “Dessert Can Save the World” is a gentle reminder that we need to celebrate - and celebrate EVERYTHING, from the really big things like birthdays and holidays to the less big like good haircuts and the first day of June, to the really sucky times. Author Christina Tosi reminds us that even in the moments when we fail spectacularly there can be something to learn and celebrate.
One of the best ways to celebrate anything is dessert. Dessert can make bad days good, and good days awesome.
I love to bake, so I was a little familiar with Christina’s reputation as a baker and with Momofuku Milk Bar, but I really didn’t know anything about her background. I expected this to be a great recipe reference for baking, but I was so wrong. Yes, there are some recipes in here, but this is so much more than a cookbook. It’s Christina Tosi’s story, but it’s more than just a memoir too. She (and her mom, Greta) is such an inspiration. She mentions that one of her guiding principles is to look for fun in the world everyday. She strives to be a source of joy and give back - to make the world a little happier. She and her book are so fantastically uplifting and motivating. As she says -- happiness is a choice, even if it’s not the easiest choice everyday. So just bake the cake. Spread a little joy, even in the smallest way. You may not change the whole world, but you can make your little corner of it better. Even if it wasn’t what I expected, this is a book that I am so grateful to have read, and which has definitely found a permanent home on my bookshelf.
Thank you to Christina Tosi, Rodale/Harmony, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Dessert Can Save the World!
I was excited about this one- I like Christina Tosi a lot and watched her IG videos during lock down. The book definitely had fewer recipes than I was expecting and if it were anyone other than CT I’d say it leaned to toxic positivity but I swear it just feels like her natural personality to be that happy and positive.
I was so excited to read this book but I DNF'd around 60%. I was expecting more of a food-focused memoir a la Ruth Reichl, but this book is truly self-help with very few recipes sprinkled throughout. I found it leaned more on the end of toxic positivity than I prefer in self help, and the author's overly sunny outlook didn't resonate with me.
I also noticed that Rosen's Cinnamon Buns in Toronto, was included in a recommendation of bakeries around the world, but they closed several years ago. (I live in Toronto and frequented the bakery while it was open.)
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This ended up being a bit more memoir/manifesto than new recipes than I was expecting, but that’s more on my personal expectations. Tosi’s writing is solid; but this just wasn’t what I was looking for personally.
Thanks NetGalley for giving me a chance to experience this wonderful book. As a big dessert enthusiast I obviously loved the recipes, but equally enjoyed the personal and the inspirational bits. This book has a warm, inspiring, motivating vibe about it and I appreciated the tone and the writing style.
I really enjoyed this look behind the scenes at Milk Bar and what motivates Christina Tosi. Her passion to spread joy is infectious and almost leaps off the pages. I'm off to find some butter and sugar to spread some joy myself!
This was such a fun read! It was really whimsical and delightful to read about the joy of baking, and the love and passion that Tosi puts into her baking and her career growth. Being able to read about her journey to be where she is today was very inspirational, and definitely made me want to make cookies ha ha. If you think this is just a recipe book, think again! While it does have recipes (the ones I've tried are delicious!), it has personal stories and also life lessons about how to express yourself through what you love, grow your relationships, and connect to others while making your life joyful and exhilarating! This was one sweet story - I loved it! Definitely grab your fave dessert and give it a read!
Christina Tosi is one of the most popular and well known pastry chefs around. She started a small bakery with Momofuku owner David Chang and turned it into a pastry empire. She’s been a judge on Masterchef and Masterchef Junior, was featured on Chef’s Table: Pastry, and hosts Bake Club. She’s won James Beard awards. She has won us all over with her big smile and her wacky desserts and her upbeat perkiness.
She’s written cookbooks and shared her cookies and ice creams and cakes by shipping them all over and by stocking them on grocery store shelves. She is an inspiration to professional bakers and home bakers everywhere. But where does she get that indomitable spirit?
Tosi’s latest book is not a cookbook, though it does have a few recipes in it, personal ones, ones that help her tell her very personal stories. Dessert Can Save the World is a memoir, a book about her failures and her hard-won victories. It’s her personal rules for living her best life and baking her best cookies. She shares stories of growing up and growing a business. She talks about working long hours in regimented kitchens surrounded by men who doubted her skills and about finding her voice and her people by showing up and being unabashedly herself.
Dessert Can Save the World has a lot of good advice, not just for having fun with your bakes, but for living a fuller, sweeter life. She got a lot of her positivity and heart for service from her mother, and there are a lot of stories about Greta, starting with how the Midwestern mother came into a professional kitchen in New York City and introduced herself to every single person, wanting to know who her daughter was working with. And after heading back home, she sent a small Christmas gift to every person in that kitchen, remembering each and every name, from the dishwasher to the head chef.
Tosi herself believes in celebrations, not just for the big events in life for also for the small everyday moments that so often go by barely acknowledged. She encourages her readers to find the big thing that motivates them and lean into that. She talks about how to get back to your path if you’ve strayed and how to wear others down, the ones who keep saying no, to get them on your team. She is motivated and motivating, wanting people to chase after what makes them happy, and if that is cookies, then all the better.
While Dessert Can Save the World is an obvious choice for anyone wanting to find the motivation to bake more, or to bake professionally, it’s also a guidebook for anyone wanting to start a non-traditional business, for recent graduates, or for anyone struggling to find their place in the world. Tosi can be a little over-the-top chipper at times, but for the most part she moderates her enthusiasm, finding a balance that’s not too sweet.
It’s hard not to be moved by some of the stories in this book. I’m a longtime fan of Christina Tosi and an ever longer fan of cookies, so I was excited to dig into this book. I figured there would be some recipes sprinkled in, but I wasn’t expecting them to be so personal to her. I was excited to read the stories of her time in professional kitchens, but I was even more drawn into the stories that displayed her humanity. Dessert Can Save the World has a lot of solid advice in it, advice for building a business, advice for showing up for people, advice for finding your path. But mixed in with all that is the comfort and warmth and interesting surprises that you find in a really well-made dessert. In a lot of ways, this book feels like a really good piece of cake. (Also, it made me really hungry, so if I have to go out and buy ice cream, I think we all know who is to blame.)
Egalleys for Desert Can Save the World were provided by Rodale Inc. through NetGalley, with many thanks.
It's an easy sell when there's a cookbook by Christina Tosi since MilkBar is so well-known. This is sure to be a hit with patrons.