What’s better than box cake, you might ask? Nothing, actually. All I really want for breakfast, lunch, or dinner is box cake and its amazing wealth of by-products. I typically allow this 24-hour splurge only on my birthday. The one thing that always eluded me, though, was how the hell do they get box cake to taste like that?! I have made coffee cake, soup, cookies, clusters, and cereal out of it. So we undertook the recipe development task of re-creating my favorite, and the ultimate birthday box cake, Funfetti, from scratch. It took us four months to get there. And we still don’t make our own rainbow sprinkles (which Wylie Dufresne calls “cheating”). But I couldn’t be happier with the results: the crumbs, Birthday Cake (page 105), Birthday Cake Frosting (page 107), and Confetti Cookies (page 100). My dream come true.

　　

Ingredients

Makes about 275 g (2 1/4 cups)

　　100 g granulated sugar (1/2 cup)

　　25 g light brown sugar (1 1/2 tablespoons tightly packed)

　　90 g cake flour (3/4 cup)

　　2 g baking powder (1/2 teaspoon)

　　2 g kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon)

　　20 g rainbow sprinkles (2 tablespoons)

　　40 g grapeseed oil (1/4 cup)

　　12 g clear vanilla extract (see page 21) (1 tablespoon)

　　

Step 1

Heat the oven to 300°F.

　　

Step 2

Combine the sugars, flour, baking powder, salt, and sprinkles in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed until well combined.

　　

Step 3

Add the oil and vanilla and paddle again to distribute. The wet ingredients will act as glue to help the dry ingredients form small clusters; continue paddling until that happens.

　　

Step 4

Spread the clusters on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan. Bake for 20 minutes, breaking them up occasionally. The crumbs should still be slightly moist to the touch; they will dry and harden as they cool.

　　

Step 5

Let the crumbs cool completely before using in a recipe or scarfing by the handful. Stored in an airtight container, the crumbs will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.

　　Reprinted with permission from Momofuku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi with Courtney McBroom. Copyright © 2011 by MomoMilk, LLC. Published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Christina Tosi is the chef and owner of Momofuku Milk Bar, called "one of the most exciting bakeries in the country" by Bon Appètit. As founder of the desserts programs at Momofuku, including Noodle Bar, Ssäat;m Bar, Ko and Má Pêche, Christina was most recently shortlisted for a James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef Award. Christina and her confections have appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and Live! with Regis and Kelly, among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her three dogs and eats an unconscionable amount of raw cookie dough every day.