Strawberry cream cake with basil syrup

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 250 g flour
• 125 g sugar
• 125 g butter
• 1 egg(s)
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar
• ½ pack of baking powder
• 80 ml water, boiling
• 1 bunch of basil
• 80 ml sugar
• 2 packets of pudding powder (strawberry pudding)
• 3 cups of sour cream, 200 g each
• 500 ml whole milk, 3.5% fat
• 1 dashes lemon juice
• 5 tbsp San-apart or gelatin
• 150 g powdered sugar
• 1 pack of strawberries, frozen or fresh
• 2 bars of white chocolate, 100 g each
• 1 pack of cake glaze, red, strawberry flavor

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest time approx. 12 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Total time approx. 14 hours 30 minutes

unusual for a 26cm springform pan

Grease a 26cm springform pan and line the bottom with baking paper. First, prepare the shortcrust pastry for the base and sides. All ingredients should be at room temperature. Mix the egg, sugar, and softened butter. Add the vanilla sugar, flour, and baking powder and knead everything into a smooth dough. If it’s still too sticky, simply add a little more flour. Let the dough rest in a cool place for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the basil syrup. A bunch of fresh basil should yield at least 25 leaves. Chop these as finely as possible. Mix the hot water with the sugar in a small saucepan. Reduce the heat to low and add the basil. Simmer until no sugar crystals remain. Reduce well; there shouldn’t be much liquid left. If you like, you can puree everything in a measuring jug or similar, but this isn’t necessary. Set aside. For the cream, mix the custard powder with a little cold milk until smooth. In a small saucepan, gently bring the remaining milk to a boil. Stir the mixed powder into the hot milk and bring to a boil. When it thickens, reduce the heat and continue stirring to prevent the pudding from burning. Let it cool while stirring. When the pudding is only lukewarm, transfer the sour cream to a large mixing bowl. Add the pudding, powdered sugar, and San-apart and mix until a smooth, creamy mixture forms. (Instead of San-apart, you can also use gelatin, but since the cake is very moist and collapsed on my first attempts, I recommend using a cream setting agent.) Stir the cooled basil syrup into the cream. Preheat the oven to 175°C (top/bottom heat). Roll out the shortcrust pastry and place it in the baking pan, forming a nice, high rim. You can pre-bake the pastry if you prefer it crispy, but don’t bake it for too long. (I personally don’t like doing this, as I don’t want to risk the shortcrust pastry slipping off.) Pour the cream onto the shortcrust pastry. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1-1.5 hours on the middle rack. (I always prefer to play it safe and leave it in a little longer, but this depends on your oven.) If using frozen strawberries, let them thaw and drain. Once thawed, cut the larger ones into smaller pieces so they can be easily distributed on top of the cream. The cake should bake for a good half hour before adding the strawberries for the remaining baking time. If they start to get too dark, you can cover them with some aluminum foil. Fresh strawberries don’t need to be baked. After the baking time, remove the cake from the oven. If you used frozen strawberries, some liquid will have formed, even after thawing. You can carefully absorb this with a few kitchen towels. While the cake is still warm, add the glaze. For an extra basil kick, you can make a little more basil syrup and mix it into the glaze. Otherwise, simply follow the package instructions. Pour the hot glaze onto the cake. Let the cake rest in a cool place overnight. Do not remove the edge until it has completely cooled. Remove the edge and carefully melt the white chocolate in a double boiler. Brush the shortcrust pastry edge with white chocolate. Note: I like to decorate the top edge with pistachios, but that’s entirely up to your imagination. Let the chocolate harden, and your eye-catcher is ready!