Phyllo Dough Is The Star Of The Popular TikTok Crinkle Cake

If you are looking to make new desserts to test your baking skills, look no further than TikTok for creative recipes. The social media platform has become the go-to for inventive and staple sweet treats with a twist. Thanks to TikTok, a whole new audience has been introduced to ice cream bread, boneless chocolate chip cookies, and cottage cheese ice cream.

The latest TikTok dessert obsession is something called crinkle cake. As the name suggests, this cake's texture is wrinkly, thanks to the type of dough used. To achieve crinkles, phyllo — or filo — dough is essential. Crinkle cake is a hit on TikTok, with multiple videos of the crispy, sweet dessert reaching 1 billion views. Although there are different ways to make crinkle cake, at its core, the staple ingredient is phyllo dough. This dough is pastry dough rolled out to be extremely thin and is typically used in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern desserts such as baklava.

One particular recipe has gone viral on TikTok, accruing 1.5 million likes. This recipe tells bakers to take two sheets of phyllo dough and fold them, creating crinkles. Repeat until you fill a baking sheet or pan with phyllo dough. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 10 minutes at 350 F. Melt 2 sticks of butter, then pour it evenly on top of the dough. Bake the cake for another 10 minutes.

The next step is to pour custard onto the cake. Whisk together 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk, 2 eggs, and 2-3 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Then bake the cake for another 30-40 minutes. Finally, coat the crinkle cake with sugar syrup.

Once you perfect the basis of crinkle cake, you can dress up the dessert to your liking, especially with the toppings. Top the cake off with crushed pistachios or your favorite nuts. Or try adding cookie butter or strawberries.

Although crinkle cake has been launched into stardom on TikTok, the dessert has been a beloved delicacy in the Middle East for a long time. Crinkle cake is also known as muakacha, Arabic for "wrinkled." It's unclear when and where it originated, but phyllo dough is believed to have arisen during the Ottoman Empire. The most well-known use for phyllo dough is baklava, a small and flaky pastry. It is thought to originate in Turkey but has become a staple in Greek and other Mediterranean cuisines. Like crinkle cake, you can find butter, nuts such as pistachio, and other spices in baklava.

Because of its flakiness and versatility, phyllo dough can also be used as wrapping for other dishes. Try using it as a base in apple strudels, wontons, egg rolls, empanadas, and pot pies. Although you can make your own phyllo dough, it's also available in various frozen forms at grocery stores.