Cover Image: Mooncakes and Milk Bread

Mooncakes and Milk Bread

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Member Reviews

Mooncakes and Milk Bread - Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries by Kristina Cho is an amazing Chinese cookbook! Reading through this, my mouth was watering. The beautiful pictures make me want to try each recipe. Just the bread section alone is enough to make this book worth buying. But there is so much more to this book than just bread. There is also cakes, tarts, cookies, breakfast recipes and drinks. The descriptions/instructions are clear and make me think I could actually make any of these recipes. I can’t wait to try some of them. I am looking forward to purchasing my own copy so I can have it on my bookshelf with all my other cookbooks.

Thank you NetGalley & Harper Horizon for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review. #MooncakesandMilkBread #NetGalley

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This book is amazing!! I am so grateful to Kristina Cho on creating this one of a kind book. I had originally found Kristina due to her instagram and tiktok prescence- wherein she exudes such a warm and reassuring prescence! The recipes upon face value feel as though they could be very intimidating, yet her descriptions and instructions are so thorough I felt that I could take on the challenge!

Most of these recipes I have only been able to buy at stores like H-Mart until now. What is so smart about these recipes is that not only can I make dessert like the Shiny Fruit Cream Cake or the Kinako Sewing Tin Butter Cookies at home, but they honestly taste better than the store bought. I also loved learning not only about the Chinese holidays, but Kristina even includes mini travel essays on family owned Asian Bakeries in the United States that I had no knowledge of on the East Coast- places that look so delicious I will have to go in the future!

Thank you to Harper Horizon and NetGalley for my copy!

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I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. I cannot wait to try some of these recipes! They look pretty easy and the directions are wonderful!

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On a recent trip to California with my boyfriend, I was introduced to brick toast for the first time in my life and I’ve thought of it ever since. I’ve always loved Asian dishes and flavors but cooking them felt intimidating. This author breaks everything down and makes it seem doable! Needless to say, I was so excited to receive this book and i cannot wait to try many if not all of the recipes. I think that the author’s family history and family photos were a nice, sweet touch to the cookbook as well. I loved the explanations from the author, the pictures for each recipe, and honestly how many different delicious recipes there are all in this one cookbook.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with the copy of this cookbook!

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This book was amazing!!! One of the first Cantonese Chinese cookbooks in English. I cannot wait to try out some of the recipes. The photos are beautiful and the writing allows you to connect with the author's culture.

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Kristina Cho shares more than just recipes in her cookbook “Mooncakes and Milk Bread”. She also shares her personal experiences growing up and living as a Chinese American in the United States. She also shares stories of her family history and some bakeries that are famous and important in Chinese American food history.

There is all of this, but there are also many, many delicious looking easy to follow recipes. As well as beautiful photography. This cookbook should be a staple for any baker who wants to experiment with new food or experience food that they can taste and think of their history and feel at home.

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Ah. I love this book because the content bring me back to my childhood with my mom and grandma handmade bread and snack. I cant cook as good as both of them but this book make me want too.

Not only provide us with amazing recipes, the author give us a storybook about Chinesse snacks and sweet. She share about her experience and suggestion to get perfect ingredients and tools. some of it easy to replace with modern tools so dont overwhelmed with that list.
Overall this is a one stop book when you need knowledge and delicious recipe of Chinesse sweets and snack.

Thanks Netgalley for providing me this amazing book. Love it.

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To say I loved this book would certainly be an understatement. This book felt like learning family recipes with a seat at the author's table. The recipes were clear and concise and the stories felt short, sweet and intimate. So many of these buns and dumplings I always considered impossible or too much work. But, Kristina Cho made them all so approachable. I just made the Steamed Cupcakes for Chinese New Year and the secret ingredient blew my mind (and my family's). Such a great book to bring childhood eats back to my kitchen.

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Kristina Cho's Mooncakes and Milk Bread is an exciting book, since it seeks to bring the largely as yet unexplored world of Chinese baking to the fore. Books on Chinese cooking have far too long focused mainly on wok based dishes, stir fries, soups and other techniques, whereas Cho's book feels like an outlier. Peppered with beautiful photographs and easily achievable recipes, the book sets approachable goals for both beginner bakers and enthusiasts curious to experiment with Asian style baking. Everything from savory and sweet to breakfast dishes, cakes and tarts, Cho's book is a delight to look at and to bake with.

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This cookbook is filled with nostalgic recipes of some of my favorite treats growing up. Im not really a baker but excited to try my hand at it soon. This book made me hungry! Brought back a lot of happy childhood memories..

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I'm an indifferent bread baker at best (I prefer cookies or traybakes), but this book has made me want to try baking something yeasted. I say this a person who is near to several different Asian and Western bakeries.

The recipes are easy to read and understand (though I have not yet tried to make anything) and the pictures are lovely. I definitely found this easier to browse on my computer than on my kindle (screen size, maybe?). The steps are easily followed, with generous explanations.

All in all, a lovely cook book and cannot wait to try some recipes out.

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I love how this book is constructed. Mooncakes and Milk Bread starts off with the Mother of All Milk Bread recipe and builds off of that. Different from other cookbooks that are full of completely different recipes, this one is full of recipes that begin with the same milk bread recipe. I love how it really gets you to become an expert in the dough recipe and shows you the different ways you can use it. The book is inspired by Chinese bakeries and the Chinese American experience, which I think is a unique perspective in modern baking. This is a great addition to any cookbook library.

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Anyone who hasn’t been to an Asian bakery has really missed out. The baked goods are unique, and always fresh and delicious. If you don’t have access to a good Asian bakery, you can actually duplicate these baked goods at home. Kristina Cho ‘s excellent cookbook, Mooncakes and Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries shows how in step-by-step instructions that are easy to follow.

Although the recipes are the main attraction in this cookbook, Cho has included information that is very helpful to all who aren’t familiar with Asian baking such as “How to Shop at an Asian Grocery Store,” as well as essential equipment. She also showcases several excellent Chinese bakeries in the US.

I love this cookbook! I have visited Asian grocery stores in Japan and China, as well as Hawaii and locations in the mainland US with large Asian populations. The baked goods are mouthwatering and I’ve tried to duplicate them, mostly without much success. Now, with this cookbook I have been able to bake some of my favorites. I must admit that I have even adapted some of the recipes to make the dough in the automatic bread machine to save time and have had perfect results.

There are enough appealing recipes to keep readers baking for months. Every time I peruse this cookbook, my baking queue gets longer. The cookbook inspires me to stay home and bake, and it will inspire readers to do the same. This cookbook is highly recommended.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

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Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!
I really love this cookbook. It feels like part essay, combined with amazing recipes. Cho shares so many details of her life and childhood and how it connects with her food journey and what she makes. Not only did I get a bunch of new recipes to try to make, I got to read really intimate and personal writings about the author. I recommend this to anyone who's potentially interested!

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There are no words to describe how fantastic this book is and to say my daughter and I loved this book would be an absolute understatement. Honestly, I almost never read the backstories of the creator, but this is so much more than "just" a recipe book... It's nostalgia, warmth and love wrapped in a beautiful bow.

We can't wait to make these recipes, because believe you me, we will be making most, if not all, of the recipes!

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This really is the perfect cookbook. I've been a fan of Chinese dishes my whole life, but I've never seen a book with every single recipe I could want in one place...until now.

I like that most of it is from scratch, so you can really have fun with it. And when you make dough for one thing, it can also serve as dough for several other things as well, so it's not as complicated as it may seem at first glance. Every recipe also has accompanying pictures, so you know what it's supposed to come out as, and how you're supposed to get to that point (for example how to properly fold buns).

I love that this focuses on so much of the science of baking and also uses weights for measurements. I hate washing spoons and cups when I could just use my scale to measure the perfect amounts. Also appreciate all of the pictures, including steps for rolling out and shaping doughs.

And, there's a lot of history, about the author's family, other families with similar baking/restaurant backgrounds in different cities, as well as the origins of the recipes themselves. Like I said, perfect cookbook.

I can't wait to have this on my shelf so I can just pop it open and try something new whenever I have time.

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This cookbook is so much more than just a compilation of recipes and ingredient descriptions. You can really feel the heart, the love that the author poured into this. It radiates with the warmth of nostalgia and cultural adoration. When I get a cookbook, I’ll often skip over the longer bits of text. I don’t usually read introductions at all! But something about the way Cho writes makes this cookbook so inviting. Like a warm hug.

Each recipe is thorough and easy to understand. I love that there is a base dough that you can use to create so many different recipes. Each bun, bread, and confection is enough to make your mouth water, with pictures that practically emit sweet-smelling steam.

I’ll be purchasing this book once it’s available and cannot wait to add it to my collection. Highly recommend!

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Mooncakes and Milk Bread is one of the first cooking books I have given a review to, and it is also quite different from other cookbooks I've read.

I loved the amount of cultural information put into this book. As someone who is not familiar with Chinese culutre, I enjoyed learning about the recipes I was looking at.

I think there were only a couple of items in this book that I am familiar with, and definitely tabbed a few options to try and make myself. That being said, I wish the format of the book was a little cleaner in the way the recipes are set up. I think the wordiness of the actual recipe can be cute down to simpler instructions. I understand this is a preference for the way people consume cookbooks, but if I am following a recipe, I like to be able to easily pinpoint the information I am needing.

Overall, a book I recommend any cookbook enthusiast, or anyone interested in Chinese Cuisine and culture pick up.

↠ 4 stars

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This is a delightful cookbook, laying out what might strike some as seemingly complex items in simple terms, so that anyone can make this delicious baked goods.

Both a great introduction for people new to this type of cuisine and an excellent book for people who grew up with this to feel seen, this is a great book, both for recipes and for representation of a part of the American melting pot.

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Mooncakes and Milk Bread is a delightful cookbook. First, I can tell it's going to get me out of the box when baking. There are so many baked goods in the book I've never heard of or tasted, so it's really exciting to think about experiencing something new to me. Second, I really appreciate the way the book is laid out. Sometimes cookbooks go the route of having seven pages of story for every recipe, but this one shared stories that brought the recipe home while still being an actual cookbook. I like to have a photo for most every recipe in a cookbook, and Mooncakes and Milk Bread has that. I also love that a lot of savory bakes are included, and it's not all sweets.

I'd recommend Mooncakes and Milk Bread to anyone looking for a great quality cookbook on Chinese baking.

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