"Muraveynik" is a simple and delicious cake with condensed milk.
Our mothers and grandmothers enjoy making a dessert called "anthill," using a classic recipe that involves baking the base. But today's generation also enjoys making this sweet treat, using store-bought cookie crumbs for quick and easy preparation, and shaping the mixture into individual cakes instead of a large one. Each recipe is unique, and the results will vary slightly in taste.
Classical
Ingredients for the base
- Flour – 500-550 gr.
- Sour cream (15-20%) – small jar (about 200 g).
- Butter – 1 pack (180-200 gr.).
- Sugar – 4 tablespoons (about 100 g).
- Baking powder - 1.5 packets, or 2 level teaspoons.
Ingredients for the cream
- Boiled condensed milk – 1 can (400 g).
- Butter (preferably 82.5%) – 1 pack (180-200 g).
- Cognac, rum or liqueur – optional (about 1-2 tablespoons).
- Chocolate for decoration – 50-100 g.
Recipe – how to cook an anthill?
- First, melt the butter in a saucepan or bowl, adding sugar at the same time and stirring until the sugar dissolves.
- After the sugar has completely dissolved, add sour cream and mix thoroughly until smooth.
- The next step is to add baking powder to the mixture, and then gradually begin to add the sifted flour into the butter-sour cream mixture, stirring well to avoid lumps.
- The resulting dough should be almost crumbly, which we roll into several balls or a thick sausage shape. This shape is needed to make it easy to grate later. Once the dough has been formed into easy-to-grate shapes, we place it in the refrigerator for an hour or in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. In the meantime, let's take a rest and look at the recipe.
- After this time, remove the dough from the refrigerator and grate it coarsely onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Then, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
- Let's use these 15 minutes to prepare the cream for our anthill. Beat the softened butter at room temperature, adding the boiled condensed milk as you beat. You can add alcohol if desired, but that's a matter of taste. Once the cream is evenly mixed, refrigerate it.
- Remove the base from the oven and let it cool (you can transfer it directly to a bowl). Now, let's see how it goes. If the grated dough has formed small pieces and hasn't stuck together during baking, then don't do anything. However, if it has stuck together (which is often the case), you can lightly mash it with a potato masher or spoon until it returns to a coarse crumbly consistency.
- Now remove the cream from the refrigerator and pour the base into it, mix thoroughly, and shape our treats by hand or using muffin tins or other molds. If desired, decorate each cake with melted chocolate.
- Place the sweets in the refrigerator for at least an hour, as the cream should thoroughly soak each cake.
The classic anthill is ready! While the recipe isn't as quick as you'd like, you and your loved ones will appreciate the taste of this wonderful dessert, made with your own hands from start to finish. Don't forget to take a photo of this cake cut out—it really does look like a real anthill, doesn't it?
And for those who prefer not to linger in the kitchen for too long, we offer a recipe using ready-made cookies instead of making dough.
Fast
Ingredients
- Sweet cookies – 500 – 600 gr.
- Butter (not less than 72.5%) – one pack (200 g).
- Boiled condensed milk – 1 can (400 g).
- Chocolate for decoration – 50-100 g.
If desired, you can add chopped walnuts or any other nuts to the "anthill" (almost every other recipe includes this ingredient). It will taste better if you lightly toast them in a frying pan without oil before chopping.
Recipe
- Crush the cookies into medium-sized pieces. You can do this by hand, with a potato masher, or by placing them in a bag and rolling them over it several times with a rolling pin.
- Beat butter at room temperature, gradually adding condensed milk.
- After the ingredients have mixed, add nuts (if you decide to add them to the cake) and cookie crumbs to the cream.
- Mix the resulting mixture thoroughly and form cakes using your hands or molds.
- After this, decorate each small anthill with melted chocolate as desired and place it in the refrigerator for at least one hour so that they are all soaked in the cream.
The quick and delicious anthill is ready! All that's left to do is take a photo, write down the recipe, and invite your friends over to taste the finished dessert!
When making the cake, you can skip the sculpting step and make one large cake instead of the pastries. However, many people still opt for a pastry, as a pastry can crumble when cut (especially if you don't wait for it to soak, which takes a bit longer), while a pastry can be eaten in practically one bite. In my opinion, a small, neat pastry looks much prettier than one large, oddly shaped cake, especially in photos.
And of course, the recipe for this dessert isn't limited to just these two variations. Today, craftsmen make anthills from ingredients such as sweet corn sticks, popcorn, and even oat bran. The taste, of course, will be very different from what real anthill lovers are accustomed to, but everything changes, and perhaps the recipe that recently seemed like an unacceptable liberty will tomorrow be all over the internet, considered the authentic, classic recipe for this wonderful dessert called anthills.
