Basil Olive Oil Cake with Strawberry Glaze

Rich Olive Oil flavor with fragrant basil in a surprisingly light sponge!  Topped with a rich strawberry glaze. This is the cake to wake up your palate and impress your guests.

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I got a wild hair that I wanted to make an olive oil cake.  An olive oil cake is a cake where most of the liquid is substituted with olive oil.  This gives the cake a rich olive oil flavor and a nice crisp crust. Now, I have never in my life baked an olive oil cake.  So, this recipe proved more of a challenge than most.

Olive oil cakes are more dense than a typical cake.  I wanted something with a little more lightness to it.  So, I decided immediately that I would use an egg-foam method.  All this means is that you whip the eggs and sugar first, thereby creating an egg foam.  Sometimes, this is done using only yolks with the whites whipped separately, such as in a French genoise cake.  I thought that sounded like too much patchke (fiddling around) for a bundt cake, so I went with a whole egg foam.  

I had this fantasy in my mind of a perfectly formed bundt cake with ooey gooey glaze dripping over it.  I cannot even tell you why I decided this needed to be a bundt cake, but I refused to let go of that idea.  I tried a few different formulations to get just the right texture. In the end, the only liquid ingredients for this cake are olive oil and eggs.  The cake is lighter than a traditional olive oil cake (woot!). Think angel food cake, that’s pretty close to the texture here.  

Now, I couldn’t possibly just make a boring cake.  I wanted to really dig into the challenge and add a savory element to this dessert.  That’s where basil comes it. It’s really a fairly sweet herb so it plays nicely inside this cake.  It gives it a fragrant sweetness to offset the rich olive flavor. And what else goes great with basil?  Strawberries.  

I needed to be certain that this cake was a DESSERT.  So, I created a thick glaze that is absolutely packed with strawberry flavor.  Why is the glaze so thick? So you don’t pout sadly while it all pools around the bottom of your cake of course!  Follow the steps carefully and you can recreate this stunning, bakery-quality Basil Olive Oil Cake with Strawberry Glaze.

Things you’ll Need: Bundt pan, Stand Mixer, Cooling Rack (#sponsored)

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Serves: 12 Prep Time: 20 Minutes Cook Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

BUNDT CAKE

• 1-½ Cups Sugar
• 5 Eggs
• 3 Yolks
• 1-¼ teaspoons Kosher Salt
• 1-¼ Cups Olive Oil
• 2-¾ Cups Flour
• 2-½ teaspoons Baking Powder
• About 10 leaves Fresh Basil

GLAZE

• 1-½ Cups Powdered Sugar
• ¼ Cups Freeze-dried Strawberries, ground to powder
• 3 Tablespoons Non-dairy Milk

Instructions:  

1. Preheat Oven to 325.  Spray bundt pan and dust lightly with flour, or spray with baking spray.  Quickly chiffonade the basil and measure ¼ cup. It takes approximately 10 leaves.
2. Place the Sugar, Eggs, Yolks and Kosher Salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Using the whip attachment, whip on the highest setting until pale and fluffy.
3. While the mixer is going, slowly drizzle in the Olive Oil.  Don’t rush, keep a slow, steady drizzle until it’s all incorporated, then turn off the mixer and remove your bowl.
4. Flour and Baking Powder should be incorporated by folding in 3 additions.  So, first sprinkle 1 cup of flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder over the surface of your batter, then gently fold in with a rubber spatula.  Then repeat with another 1 cup flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Lastly, fold in the remaining flour and baking powder.  
5. Sprinkle the Fresh Basil over the batter, careful to break up the pieces of basil so it isn’t all clumped in one place.  Fold in gently.
6. Pour the batter into your prepared bundt pan.  Spread it out evenly. Bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
7. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes.  Then flip the pan over on a cooling rack. Allow the cake to cool fully on the cooling rack.
8. Once the cake is cooled, prepare the glaze.  Place Powdered Sugar, Freeze-dried Strawberry Powder (Freeze-dried strawberries can be pulsed in a food processor to create a powder), and Non-dairy Milk into a small mixing bowl and whisk thoroughly.   The glaze will be very thick. Glaze should slowly run off the whisk when lifted. If it stays stuck in the whisk, add 1 more teaspoon of non-dairy milk and whisk it in.  
9. Allow the glaze to sit for 5 minutes.  This lets the strawberries rehydrate a bit in the liquid.  After 5 minutes, whisk the glaze briefly.
10. Now evenly spread the glaze over the top of the bundt cake.  The glaze will not immediately run down the sides. Allow the cake to sit for 5-10 minutes for the glaze to slowly run down and then set.
11. Serve at room temperature.  This cake can be frozen and allowed to come to room temperature on the counter before serving.  Cake lasts for 5-7 days in the refrigerator.

📖 Recipe

Basil Olive Oil Cake with Strawberry Glaze

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Dairy-free, Kosher, Pescatarian, Vegetarian

Keyword: Entertaining, Husband-approved, Make-ahead, Nut-free, Shabbat, Summer

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour

Total Time: 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings: 12

Calories: 487kcal

A surprisingly light, spongy cake, this Basil Olive Oil Cake with Strawberry Glaze is a bakery-quality cake that you can make at home!

Print Recipe

Equipment

• Bundt Pan
• Stand Mixer
• Cooling Rack

Ingredients

• BUNDT CAKE
• 1-½ Cups Sugar
• 5 Eggs
• 3 Yolks
• 1-¼ teaspoons Kosher Salt
• 1-¼ Cups Olive Oil
• 2-¾ Cups Flour
• 2-½ teaspoons Baking Powder
• About 10 leaves Fresh Basil
• GLAZE
• 1-½ Cups Powdered Sugar
• ¼ Cups Freeze-dried Strawberries ground to powder
• 3 Tablespoons Non-dairy Milk

Instructions

• Preheat Oven to 325. Spray bundt pan and dust lightly with flour, or spray with baking spray. Quickly chiffonade the basil and measure ¼ cup. It takes approximately 10 leaves.
• Place the Sugar, Eggs, Yolks and Kosher Salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the whip attachment, whip on the highest setting until pale and fluffy.
• While the mixer is going, slowly drizzle in the Olive Oil. Don’t rush, keep a slow, steady drizzle until it’s all incorporated, then turn off the mixer and remove your bowl.
• Flour and Baking Powder should be incorporated by folding in 3 additions. So, first sprinkle 1 cup of flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder over the surface of your batter, then gently fold in with a rubber spatula. Then repeat with another 1 cup flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Lastly, fold in the remaining flour and baking powder.
• Sprinkle the Fresh Basil over the batter, careful to break up the pieces of basil so it isn’t all clumped in one place. Fold in gently.
• Pour the batter into your prepared bundt pan. Spread it out evenly. Bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes. Then flip the pan over on a cooling rack. Allow the cake to cool fully on the cooling rack.
• Once the cake is cooled, prepare the glaze. Place Powdered Sugar, Freeze-dried Strawberry Powder (Freeze-dried strawberries can be pulsed in a food processor to create a powder), and Non-dairy Milk into a small mixing bowl and whisk thoroughly. The glaze will be very thick. Glaze should slowly run off the whisk when lifted. If it stays stuck in the whisk, add 1 more teaspoon of non-dairy milk and whisk it in.
• Allow the glaze to sit for 5 minutes. This lets the strawberries rehydrate a bit in the liquid. After 5 minutes, whisk the glaze briefly.
• Now evenly spread the glaze over the top of the bundt cake. The glaze will not immediately run down the sides. Allow the cake to sit for 5-10 minutes for the glaze to slowly run down and then set.

Video

Notes

Serve at room temperature. This cake can be frozen and allowed to come to room temperature on the counter before serving. Cake lasts for 5-7 days in the refrigerator.

Nutrition

Sodium: 128.2mg | Sugar: 38.1g | Cholesterol: 61.6mg | Calories: 487kcal | Fat: 26g | Protein: 4.3g | Carbohydrates: 62.4g