Hello and welcome to the second post of October, and the first of my spooky movie series! We have a pretty unique cake to start us off, and LISTEN. I am fully aware he’s a goofy little guy. He’s like, the derpiest sand worm to have ever existed but that’s ok. I’m no pastry chef. He’s not hyper realistic. He’s just a fun little guy.
Anyway, how’s everyone’s October going? I’m not gonna lie, mine’s off to a bit of a shaky start. It’s the end of the quarter at school so that means test upon test upon test upon test. Sooooo much studying over the weekend. I tend to forget the end of a quarter is actually a kind of big milestone and not just a week of insanity. Like, I’m a quarter of the way through the school year. Craziness.
Also, my computer that I use for all blog work, and project work, is currently out of commission. I’m writing this on the family iPad thingy and I really don’t like it because it messes with the format of my recipes. And, it means all of the work on my project (which is now technically over due) has come to a screeching halt. It’s really stressing me out, but I’m trying to focus on the fact that the project is much more lenient than a school deadline. Also the fact that there really isn’t much I can do about the situation right now.
So this weekend I had absolutely no free time, but I’m hoping this coming weekend I’ll be able to spend Sunday evening watching a Halloween movie. I was thinking Corpse Bride, or maybe Hocus Pocus. Next weekend I’ll have one test to study for, which is a lot better than three, but still very stressful.
Ok that’s enough about my boring old life, let’s get into this cake. I’m gonna be perfectly honest with you, the idea for this one came to me at 2:30 AM in April. Yes, that is a very weird time to be thinking about October blog recipes but hey, I can’t complain if it works. But anyway, I’ve had this idea brewing in the back of my head for a while and I’ve been really excited. It’s also kind of funny because at the time, I didn’t even know about the new Beetlejuice movie. But hey, I guess it works out.
This cake is really cool because it’s not like any type of cake you would expect. It’s a Moroccan Snake Cake, traditionally called M’hanncha. It’s pretty much just a sweet nut mixture rolled up inside layers of phyllo dough, and then swirled up into a snake-like coil. For this recipe, the filling is chocolate almond, and it’s iced to look like a Sandworm from Beetlejuice.
Describe this Cake to Me
Taste: The phyllo pastry in this cake is perfectly buttery, with a touch of saltiness, while the filling is nutty and filled with bittersweet chocolate. The icing adds a little extra sweetness to make it perfectly balanced.
Texture: The best part about this cake is the flakey phyllo pastry. It gets wrapped around a soft chocolate almond filling, and topped with a royal icing to add just the right amount of moisture.
Ease: This cake is a little bit more on the difficult side, but still perfectly manageable. The filling comes together quickly in the food processor, but the rolling takes a little while. The icing is also a little time consuming, but not technically difficult.
The Filling
The filling of this cake is where all the flavor comes from. It’s made completely in the food processor, so it’s super simple. The main flavors come from the almonds, chocolate, honey, and butter. There’s a little cinnamon and vanilla to bring out those flavors, and milk, egg, and sugar to hold it all together. It makes a paste that you can easily fill the pastry with.
Shaping
To shape this snake, you place three sheets of phyllo on the counter, and layer them up with butter to hold it all together. Then you put a long strip of the filling across the three of the sheets, and roll it up like a really really long cinnamon roll. Then, you coil that up to look like a snake. It might crack here, but I find that you can often use scraps of phyllo to cover up the cracks. And if not, It really won’t matter because the filling will hold shape, so you can just put icing over it and no one will ever know. I like to place the loose end of the coiled cake up on top of a ball of crunched up aluminum foil so it elevates a little and looks more like a head.
The Icing
When designing this cake, I debated what kind of icing I wanted to do for a long time. I knew I didn’t wanted buttercream because that would be too heavy, but I knew a classic milk and sugar glaze would be to thin. I considered dark and white chocolate, but then remembered I hate white chocoalte. I ended up using a royal icing, which is a tad more complicated to make, but it has a much cleaner finish and gets hard as it dries so the cake isn’t a big mess. It allows you to have a thin layer of icing that holds shape.
Sandworm Phyllo Cake
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and grease a large baking sheet with butter. Set aside.
- Add the almonds, confectioners sugar, cinnamon, and salt to a food processor. Pulse until almonds are chopped up to a rough meal. Add the egg yolk, vanilla extract, milk, and softened butter. Pulse until a ball of dough begins to form. Add the chocolate and pulse until the chocolate is combined evenly into the dough. It's ok if there are still some clumps of almond or chocolate.
- On a large flat clean surface, lay out three sheets of phyllo dough vertically. (cover the phyllo you aren't currently using loosely with a towel to prevent them from drying out) Overlap them about a 1/4 inch to create one long sheet. Brush the sheets with roughly ¼ of the melted butter. Try to use the butter as a glue to hold the three sheets together. Be careful, as the phyllo tears easily. Lay another three sheets of phyllo on top, overlapping the edges about 1/4 of an inch again. Use another ¼ of the butter and brush that on top. Repeat this process until you have 4 layers of pastry, in 3 overlapping columns.
- Form the filling into a log and lay it all the way across the long edge of the pastry. Slowly and carefully roll the phyllo up into a very long log around the filling. Slowly and carefully coil up the log into a spiral shape, as pictured. Leave about 6 inches out of the spiral to be the head.
- Carefully transfer the cake to the previously prepared baking sheet. Rest the head on top of a crumpled up piece of foil. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned on top. Let the cake cool completely (with the foil stand still attached) before frosting.
- Place the sugar, meringue powder, salt, and 8 Tablespoons of water in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Using a hand or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat on medium speed for 30 seconds, then turn up to high and whip the icing for 1.5-2 minutes. Icing is ready when it drizzles down from the whisk and takes 5-10 seconds to absorb back into the icing bowl. Keep in mind, the longer you whip the icing, the thicker it will get. If it gets too thick, we run the risk of it tearing the pastry.
- Pour half of the icing into a separate bowl. Add the cocoa powder and a few drops of black for coloring. Whip until just combined. Add more coloring if the icing is too gray. It will never get super black, but as it dries the icing darkens.
- Carefully remove the foil stand from the cooled cake’s head. Pour the white icing into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip. Pipe lines across the cake to break it into sections for the different colors. Fill every other section (starting with the head) with white icing. You'll want to pipe a dollop of icing on a section, and then carefully spread it with a spatula. The pastry tears easily, so work slowly and carefully. Let that sit to harden for about 5 minutes before you add the black.
- Add the black icing to a piping bag fitted with a small round tip and fill the remaining sections with black icing in the same way you did with the white icing, being careful not to tear it. If desired, add candy eyes to the head, adhered with a little icing.
- Allow the finished cake to sit for at least one hour. The frosting hardens as it sits, which will make the cake much easier to cut. Slice, serve, and enjoy!