Cake of the Day: Strawberry Basil Cake with Vanilla Cream
Photo: Betty Hung
Strawberry and basil make for a delicious flavor combination in salads, cocktails, and yes, even cakes. The two ingredients come together in a strawberry-laced basil sponge cake from Betty Hung, who writes the blog Yummy Workshop and is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The blogger is a full-time baker at Beaucoup Bakery and Café where she turns out classic French pastries. When she gets home, she enters her workshop, a place where she creates her sweet recipes that are unique in flavor and design, such as Peanut Butter and Jelly Croissants, Mango Raspberry Yogurt Tart, and Blackberry and Rose Roulade.
“Continuing my experiment in adding herbs to sweets, I chose to add basil to this dessert,” she writes. “The green creates a nice contrast to the red, as the basil flavor complements the strawberries.”
To make the bright green layers, she adds to the cake batter some olive oil that’s been blended with basil leaves. The result is a moist, green-tinted cake that sandwiches a vanilla cream center and has beautifully arranged sliced strawberries around the outside. Lastly, she decorates the top with more strawberries, fresh basil, and edible flowers. “This cake is not very sweet nor heavy…the basil flavor makes it very refreshing and light,” she says. Perfect for this time of year.
Get the recipe: Strawberry Basil Cake with Vanilla Cream
More delicious strawberry cakes:
Buttermilk Cake with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
