Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and grease a large baking sheet with butter. Set aside.
Make the filling
- 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.
Shape the cake
- 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.
Make the icing
- 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.
Decorate the cake
- 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!