I first learned about this cookbook through the Eat Your Books weekly newsletter, which highlighted it as an up and coming cookbook. And then I was tempted to pre-order it through Hardcover Cook when they announced that they would be doing an ingredient/equipment bundle with the book in the winter. When the book came up available on NetGalley, I could find no excuse not to read it.

It’s been about eighteen months since I’ve written a seriously comprehensive cookbook review; however, there is so much for me to squee about Mooncakes that this may not be one either. First and foremost, the recipes themselves are well-written. The ingredient measurements are provided in both metric weight (grams) and English volume (cups, teaspoons, tablespoons) so that the reader does not have to make any conversions to suit their preference. Each recipe follows a standard format, using very similar language where possible, which makes it easy to transition between similar recipes. For example, the oven preheat step was always located in a logical spot in the recipe (rather than right at the beginning). And resealable plastic bags are almost always indicated in the recipe post script as an acceptable airtight container for storage of baked goods. Second, the color commentary in the prefaces to the recipes not only provide context of why the recipe is in a Chinese bakery book, but also provide additional explanation of how the recipe is supposed to turn out and why. This makes the actual recipe ingredients and recipe steps more intelligible. Third, the profiles of small Chinese bakeries throughout the United States just happened to heighten my appetite for delicacies that I had never known by name, but definitely knew by sight and taste. Finally, the variety of recipes included in the collection was very impressive - ranging from the familiar char siu bao and har gow to personal family specialties that are just now seeing the light of day.

Did I mention the full-color photography? Each recipe is accompanied by a mouth watering full-color photograph (or two) of the finished product. In addition, the more complex recipes have a series of full-color photographs illustrating the assembly or other complicated aspect of the recipe.

Overall, I am a huge fan of specialized unique cookbooks; therefore, my desire to add a Chinese baking book to my 100-plus volume cookbook collection is not unexpected. As much as I love my Dumpling Galaxy cookbook and my Thousand Chinese Recipes tome, Mooncakes proved itself to fill a gap in my Asian collection. So I’m likely to acquire it on a post-Christmas sale.

I have yet to attempt any recipes from this cookbook because this Christmas holiday has been too hectic to make a trip to the giant Asian store for some necessary specialty ingredients. Hopefully, I’ll have an opportunity to do that soon so that I can try at least to make some dim sum. I’ll update my blog with the results if I do.

I received this book as a digital advance reader copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

I received and ARC for a fair review:

This is a beautiful cookbook/culture dive. I love that the author spent time talking about their family. different types of bakeries/shops, and Asian groceries. There is a whole chapter on how to navigate and shop well at an Asian grocery which is something I will be using to maximize my next trip to my local Asian market for sauces and more. When it comes to the milk bread, we learn a lot from the author about the origins and culture surrounding it before diving in to how to make it which I really appreciated.

Love this cookbook!

I"m really looking forward to trying some of the recipes in this book! I love to bake, so I'm excited to try some techniques and dishes that aren't traditional to "America."

Do you love Chinese cuisine, but shy away from cooking it at home? Are you afraid you don't have the right ingredients or proper tools to cook it?

Mooncakes and Milk Bread inspired by well known food blogger Kristina Cho contains easy to understand step-by-step instructions to her mouth watering family recipes. She seamlessly guides the reader through shopping at an Asian grocery store. Kristina explains the difference in meats, produce, sauces, oil, flour, yeast, tea and much more. She even includes a section devoted to using the right equipment for success.

The reader will enjoy heart warming personal glimpses of the author's background and family members. The recipes include Chinese buns, breads, cakes, cookies, dumplings, breakfast dishes, and beverages. The photographs of each recipe are phenomenal and detail steps/techniques used in the cooking process.

Mooncakes and Milk Bread by Kristina Cho was published on October 12, 2021 and is available for purchase.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Horizon for my free e-book in exchange for my honest opinion. My review is available on Amazon, NetGalley, Barnes and Nobel, and Goodreads.

This book has a lot of information. It has great detail on what you need to make a variety of different Asian breads. The recipes themselves looked a little complicated for me personally but would be very helpful for someone interested in making mooncake or milk bread.

if you thought, as I did for a long time, that Chinese cooking did not contain things like bread, cakes, and cookies, this book will open your eyes and change your mind about all that. You'll find recipes for a wide range of items, both traditional items and new twists on tradition. With clear recipes and beautiful pictures, this is a great cookbook.

What in incredible book that I cannot wait to add to my collection! Mooncakes and Milk Bread by Kristina Cho was a fantastic selection of Chinese baked goods.

I cannot wait to make every single recipe in this book. I lived in China for about 9 months. My Chinese teacher also felt that cooking Chinese food was integral to our education. So many of these are recipes I have missed having since living in China or that my teacher taught me and I have long lost. As a lover of making bread this book just makes my heart sing. I felt the directions were clear and the photos clean and appetizing. I also appreciated the well thought out but but not overdone intro. I think this section will be essential to people new to breads, Asian cuisine, etc. I also learned a few things though which was really cool and helpful when reading the rest of the book.

I received an eARC from Harper Horizon through NetGalley. All opinions are 100% my own.

Hello Kristina, thank you so much for writing this beautiful book. I love every single recipe you have in this book. I want to try them all. Because these are bread I ate when I was a kid. Now I live no longer in my hometown, so I miss those bread, we don't have it here. I love soft bread. Not to mention, the pictures here are so pretty. I love it.

I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. I picked to read and review this book because food is very important in my culture and reading this made me want to pay more attention to the family recipes. I have added some of these recipes to my food journal so I will always have them on hand and it makes me want to try out more of the savory recipes that I have discovered in this book.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

As a lover of milk and baking, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy of this book. I was not disappointed. Not only was this book full of yummy photographs (very important to me in a cookbook), but was also packed full of stories, information, and plenty of well laid out and easy to follow recipes. I especially loved the "Crispy Chinese Sausage and Cilantro pancakes" as well as "Red Bean Swirl Buns" and "Hotdog Flower Buns" which were just purely fun to make as well as being tasty! I honestly can't wait to try every single recipe in this one!

**ARC Via NetGalley**

Do not read this book when you are hungry! This is an excellent cook book to familiarize you with Chinese cooking. There are many photos and recipes throughout. It walks you through getting the items you will need to create the recipes and each step to create the dish. They are time consuming though so you will have to set aside some time to make the potstickers. The Jook will be one of my first recipes to try though the Bacon and Kale potstickers sound enticing to me.



Thanks to the author,publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Born into a Chinese American restaurant family, Cho trained as an architect and lived and worked in San Francisco, starting a blog (Eat Cho Food) because her profession didn’t fully satisfy her need to create. A move to Inner Richmond, the city’s unofficial second Chinatown, further inspired: “What was most helpful in the transition from architecture to food was the unrelenting process of iteration and development.” Architecture taught her to “balance artistry with precision when explaining techniques, presenting dishes and writing recipes.” What is so special about Cho’s book is how it is rooted in a diasporic experience of cooking, eating, and the recreation of food memories. Recipes for many of Cho’s favourite Chinese bakery offerings are hard to find (she cites Hot Dog Flower Buns, Brown Sugar Shao Bing, and Macau-style chocolate-hazelnut cookies as examples), and she wanted to change that.

“Aside from copious amounts of food, you’ll also find community in a Chinese bakery,” she writes in her introductory notes. Her book reflects this, introducing readers to four respected Chinese bakeries in the USA and outlining different establishments from ‘grab and go’ to ‘sit-down cafes’, the latter modelled on Hong Kong’s cha chaa tengs. There’s a guide on how to shop at an Asian grocery store, lots of intricately pleated detail about ingredients and techniques, and an exploration of foundational bread before we dive into the many recipes using these. And what recipes! Honey Pistachio Moon Cakes, Snow Skin Icecream Moon Cakes, Black Sesame Souffle Cheesecake, Rose Siu Mai, Bacon and Kale Potstickers, Everything Bagel Bao, Asian Pear Turnovers with Miso Glaze all excite me, but the entire recipe index will fill your heart with longing. My only criticism is the fact that not all recipes have volume and metric measurements. Some do, and some don’t, resulting in a bit of extra work for less confident cooks.

Beautiful photos, lovely recipes, fun flavor combos. Can’t wait to try some of these breads. Some of the recipes are complex and take a day to prep, but the instructions are matched with photos and seem to provide enough guidance.

This book went above any expectations I had and has honestly set a new mark in what I expect from a Cookbook.

Packed full of knowledge from the history and cultural significance of these recipes, to how to shop for ingredients in Asian Markets, this was full of character from beginning to end.

The pictures were enticing enough to make me want to try things I hadn't even considered, and the recipes are explained intuitively and concisely.

This was a joy to read and experience, and I can't wait to start trying out recipes.

I have been fascinated by Asian cultures for a while now and that includes the food. I’m also a very keen baker, so this book hits both of those areas for me.
I loved this book, the narrative was interesting, informative, but not at all dry to read. But the best bit was all of the fabulous recipes. My particular favourites were the moon cakes as I have heard of them many times. I’m really looking forward to trying out the recipes for myself.
My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.

Kristina Cho grew up in Cleveland, but her grandparents lived in the heart of Chinatown there, and that’s where she spent her weekends. She grew up surrounded by amazing food, helping out in the kitchen, eating at local Asian restaurants, and shopping at Chinese bakeries. She went to school to be an architect, but she just kept getting pulled back into food. She would cook and bake, explore Asian grocery stores, and eventually started a food blog. Now, she’s taken all that knowledge and infused it into a cookbook, so that she can share her memories and recipes with us.

Mooncakes and Milk Bread is a primer in Chinese baking, both savory and sweet. It is an exploration of Asian-American culture from a smart woman who grew up connected to both cultures. But most of all, it is a love letter to the food of her family, to the breads and buns, the cakes and cookies that have always brought her back home, no matter if she was around the world or just around the block.

If you’re not familiar with Chinese baked delicacies, Cho walks you through what you need to know to get started, from how to shop at Chinese stores and bakeries, how to buy and use Asian ingredients, and what special equipment you will need to create the variety of baked goods you can create with these recipes. I came to this cookbook with very little experience in Chinese baking, and with Cho’s detailed descriptions, her careful instructions, and all the photos, I feel like I could tackle these recipes with a decent amount of success (except the Mooncakes, usually made by masters. I’d want to work my way up to those).

She starts with some basics—Milk Bread and Steamed Buns—before moving on to show how to shape and fill them buns, and offers up ideas of creams, jams, and even tasty pork fillings. From the Deep Dish Pepperoni Bread to the Almighty Pineapple Bun, the Hot Dog Flower Buns to the Hong Kong-Style French Toast, the Tuna Buns to the Crispy Panko Pork Chop Sandwiches, these recipes work well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and even snacks.

There is the sponge cake recipe, which bakes up into the Lemon Sponge Cake, Shiny Fruit Cream Cake, and the Chocolate and Salted Peanut Crepe Cake. Or do you go with the Chinese Puff Pastry, which you can use for the Classic Egg Tarts. Or do you prefer cookies? There are Goong Goong’s Almond Cookies, Pistachio Palmiers, or Fried Sesame Balls. The breadth of possibilities in this cookbook are impressive, from sweet to savory and back again.

As someone who is not all that familiar with Chinese pastries, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into with this cookbook. But as I paged through these recipes, I found so much more than new recipes and flavors to play with. Cho offers readers a chance to see into a different culture, a way in the door for those of us who are on the outside. And for those who are already a part of Asian-American culture and who grew up on these flavors, they can find a way to create their own favorite pastries and pass on the recipes and the memories with this cookbook.

Egalleys for Mooncakes and Milk Bread were provided by Harper Horizon through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Mooncakes & Milk Bread
By Kristina Cho
A Review

A delightful introduction to the rich and wide culture of Chinese Baking with classic recipes made easy and accessible!

I’m eager to try these all out! Especially the Swiss rolls! The Pork buns! The egg tarts! And of course the jianbing!

Captivating photos, simple recipes with delicious results! A feather in the cap of any homebaker!

The part that caught my heart was the exploration of various Chinese bakeries around the USA! Definitely bookmarked a few and will be visiting in the future!

I’ll definitely be purchasing this for myself and as a Christmas gift to one of my friends!

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Horizon for the review copy and the chance to provide an honest review!

One thing I look for in a cookbook is the story behind. The vast knowledge of bread making, and the stories that come with the experience entertain me so much. This is a must have book, moreover for the bread lovers ones. I also enjoy the pau/bao recipes and the mooncake recipe satisfy my curiosity of this Chinese Heritage sweet, enjoyed on special occasion.

These recipes all looked absolutely delicious. It made me so hungry just flipping through it. I hope to try some of these some day.

I got this book because I love chinese food and I've heard a lot about milk bread and I wanted to try it. Surprisingly the majority of the ingredients you will probably already have in your cupboards. Also, it isn't that hard. You don't need to be an experienced baker to produce anything in this book. The recipes are easy to follow and explained really well.

Anyway, I have now successfully tried and enjoyed milk bread. Absolutely loved it. Now I'm on to the next.
Give it a go you won't be disappointed.