5 Milk Bar Cakes That Are Sweet Sensations

It's no surprise Milk Bar desserts are becoming a reception must-have for couples from Maryland to Napa. The New York bakery's playful and distinctive confections are a treat to behold and to taste (Post-dancing sugar rush? Check!). To celebrate the release of her second cookbook, Milk Bar Life

, we asked chef and co-owner Christina Tosi to share some of her favorite wedding-worthy creations over the years. Here, tiered cakes to dig into, plus her words of baking wisdom.

Baring It All

When she started baking, Tosi had a thought: "Why am I hiding all of the colorful, textural, exciting parts of being in the kitchen behind décor? Why not challenge the norm?"

Pictured: A four-tiered naked dulce de leche cake with dulce de leche frosting, dulce de leche, and milk crumbs.

Method to the Madness

"Each of our cakes has a point of inspiration and a deconstructed formula to the layers: cake, flavored soak, filling one, textured layer, filling two, cake, repeat, top frosting, etc," Tosi says.

Pictured: A triple-tiered confection with a level of birthday cake (rainbow cake crumble, sprinkles, and vanilla frosting) between two levels of chocolate chip cake (passion fruit curd, chocolate crumbs, and coffee buttercream).

The Naked Truth

"A great deal of time and care goes into each element, flavor, layer, color, etc.," Tosi explains. "It always seemed like a shame to me to cover it all up with icing. And trust me, I love icing more than anyone else I know!"

Pictured: A multi-flavored wedding cake with, top to bottom, strawberry-lemon cake (lemon cheesecake, pickled strawberry jam, and milk crumbs), salted pretzel cake (stout ganache, burnt honey frosting, and salted pretzel crumbs), pistachio cake (lemon curd, pistachio frosting, and milk crumbs), and chocolate malt cake (malt fudge, malted milk crumbs, and charred marshmallow).

A Medley of Flavors

Tosi's advice to bakers? "Make sure all of your frostings and fillings make sense when eaten as a whole."

Pictured: A wedding cake with a pistachio cake top and chocolate chip cake bottom.

Creative Confections

"We like to challenge what exists and why it exists," Tosi says. "It's the spirit of curiosity."

Pictured: A salted pretzel cake tier atop pistachio cake atop a birthday cake base.