Muraveynik: the Anthill Cake, Explained

Muraveynik is a cake with no layers, no cream in the usual sense, and no shape until the moment somebody gives it one. It is crumbled shortcrust, worked through caramelised condensed milk, piled into a mound and left to set. The name means anthill, and it is descriptive rather than poetic. That is exactly what it looks like.

It is also the most domestic cake in the Russian repertoire. Napoleon and Kyiv cake and Bird’s Milk all came out of professional kitchens and were copied into homes. This one went the other way. It was made at home first, because it works in a bad oven, uses ingredients that were always available, and survives being carried somewhere on a bus.

How it is built

A shortcrust dough, enriched with sour cream or with butter and egg, is made firm enough to grate. Some people grate it on a box grater straight onto a baking sheet, some roll and cut it, some pipe it. It goes into the oven in pieces and comes out as a tray of small crisp biscuits.

Those biscuits are then broken up by hand, not to dust but to rubble, with pieces ranging from a lentil to a fingernail. That range is the whole texture of the finished cake and a food processor destroys it in about four seconds, which is why anybody who has made a good one does it with their hands.

The rubble is folded through boiled condensed milk, sometimes with butter beaten into it and usually with chopped walnuts, until every piece is coated. Then it is piled up, pressed lightly into a mound, and left in the cold for several hours while the caramel firms and the crumbs soften just enough to hold together.

Varyonaya sgushchyonka

The caramelised condensed milk deserves its own paragraph, because it is doing all the flavour work and because people outside the former Soviet Union often do not know it exists.

Condensed milk boiled in its tin for two to three hours turns into something else entirely. The sugars caramelise, the colour goes from white to deep tan, and the texture thickens to a spreadable fudge. In Britain the nearest thing on a shelf is dulce de leche, and it is near enough that the substitution is honest.

Every Soviet household knew how to do this and every Soviet household knew somebody whose tin had exploded because the pan boiled dry. The flavour it gives, toffee with a milky edge and none of the sharpness of a sugar caramel, is the taste of a whole category of desserts, including our oreshki.

Muraveynik (Anthill Cake)Muraveynik, the anthill cake. Crumbled shortcrust piled with caramelised condensed milk, no baking of layers.£76Order this

Why it keeps so well

Most of our cakes are best on the day they arrive and acceptable for two more. This one gets better for a day and is still good for four or five.

The reason is that nothing in it is going stale in the way a sponge goes stale. There is no crumb full of water waiting to dry out. The biscuit is already dry, the caramel around it holds almost no free water, and what actually happens over the first twenty four hours is that the two equalise: the crumbs soften very slightly, the caramel firms very slightly, and the mound goes from a pile of pieces to one thing you can cut.

That makes it a sensible choice if you are ordering for an event where the timing is not entirely in your hands, or for a house where cake gets eaten over several days rather than in one sitting.

How to serve it

Not in wedges, or not only in wedges. A muraveynik does not slice cleanly and it is not supposed to. Cut down into it with a heavy knife and lift pieces out, and accept that the plate will have crumbs on it.

Take it out of the fridge half an hour before. Cold caramel is hard work.

It goes with black tea, unsweetened, and with almost nothing else. Coffee fights it. Cream beside it is too much of the same thing.

The nut question

Ours contains nuts, and the allergen list on it is long because of how and where it is made. If that is a problem for your table, the honey cake and the Napoleon are the two layered cakes in the range without nuts in them, and the Bird’s Milk is the lightest nut free option.

Napoleon Cake (18cm)£86Honey Cakefrom £72

What the shop bought version does differently

You can buy muraveynik in Eastern European grocers in London, usually as a slab in a plastic tray, and it is one of the better things to buy that way because the cake genuinely keeps.

Two differences are worth knowing about.

The crumb is usually machine broken, which gives a uniform size and a sandier eating texture. The range of piece sizes in a hand broken one is what makes each mouthful slightly different, and it is the first thing to go in a production process.

And the caramel is often a commercial toffee filling rather than condensed milk boiled down, which is sweeter, glossier and more uniform. Real boiled condensed milk has a milky, slightly savoury note underneath the toffee that the substitute does not.

If you want the cheap familiar version, a grocer is the right place to go and we will say so. If you want the one that tastes like the one at home, that is a made to order argument, and it is why ours is broken by hand.

Common questions

What does muraveynik taste like?

Toffee and buttery biscuit. The condensed milk caramel is the dominant flavour, with the shortcrust giving it structure and a slight salt edge. It is sweet, and the portions people take reflect that.

Why is it called the anthill cake?

Because the finished mound of crumbs and caramel looks like one. The name is literal. In Russian it is муравейник.

How long does it keep?

Four or five days in the fridge, and it is arguably better on day two than on day one. It is the best keeper of anything we make.

Does it need to be refrigerated?

Yes, but it tolerates a few hours out of the fridge better than a cream cake does, which makes it useful for a party.

Is there a gluten free version?

No. The shortcrust is the cake. The Esterházy is our gluten free option, built on almond meringue rather than flour.

How many people does it serve?

The 18 cm size serves ten to twelve. Because it is cut into pieces rather than wedges, it stretches further than that at a table where people are grazing.

Ordering one in London

Made to order in Belgravia, delivered across London and Surrey. Forty eight hours notice, £12 delivery in central London and £15 elsewhere, £50 minimum order.