“Hmmm. Not too sure about this.” That was my family’s response when I told them I made a gluten free basil lemon cake with raspberry filling. Just one bite was all it took to get them asking for more though. This cake ended up being so delicious that my husband couldn’t get enough!
I would call this cake “elegant”. My daughter called it “sophisticated”. So I suppose you could say this cake would be a nice one for a ladies afternoon tea, if anybody does those anymore, lol! I think it would be perfect for special events like Mother’s Day, or a baby or wedding shower.
Growing Basil
Last year our basil tanked, this year isn’t as good as our first year’s basil here at our homestead, but it’s much better than last year’s crop and it’s becoming more promising each and every week. I think September will bring a nice large basil harvest for us!
Basil loves warmth, and sunlight. Cooler weather tends to brown the leaves and cause it to just kind of stunt. It doesn’t like the soil too wet, and it likes the soil to become a little dry between waterings, but not for too long. I guess you could say it’s a finicky herb.
One of the tricks with growing basil is you have to pinch off the main stem before it flowers and seeds, and then later the side shoot stems, close to the top. You want to pinch it off before it starts to bloom and seed out. Once that happens the flavor of the basil changes drastically. It goes from being sweet, and all “basily” to strong and the flavor profile begins to change. Another thing you want to watch for is older leaves. The older the leaves get, the more bitter they become. I don’t care for the flavor after it seeds and the leaves get older, most people don’t because it just doesn’t taste like basil anymore.
Way’s To Use Basil
This year I have enough so far to do everything my basil loving palate desires. Some things I’ve made that you can make too include margarita pizza’s, chicken curry with Thai basil (or regular, or both), pesto, and this year I even had some pine nuts to put in the pesto, which if you’ve never tried you’ve just got to!
Something I like to do is harvest the basil and make pesto with it, and freeze it in ice cube trays in small quantities. It is perfect for flavoring spaghetti sauces, pizza, and anything you want that fresh basil favor for through the winter and spring.
I also freeze it in larger quantities as well and we like to use pesto in place of pizza sauce for some pizza’s.
Gluten Free Basil Lemon Cake with Raspberry Filling
I didn’t want to make more pesto last week because I wanted to change things up a little, and so as I was doing my usual menu planning last Sunday I came across a Basil Lemon Cake in my kids copy of Garden to Table. As usual with dessert recipes, I adapted the recipe to be gluten free because for one, I think gluten free deserts taste better! But also because I like to do gluten free if we are not using sourdough for easier digestion.
If you like, you can frost this cake. We used a simple buttercream frosting with extra lemon extract. By the way, did you know turmeric can color your cake frosting? I really wanted to make this cake yellow, and my daughter suggested turmeric. At first I thought that was a crazy idea, until I remembered that a lot of natural yellow food coloring IS made with turmeric. You couldn’t even taste it in the frosting, but it did create a lovely and perfect yellow, lemony color!
By the way, if you love desserts be sure to check out my Strawberry Pie before you leave!
Ingredients
- 5 cups gluten free flour
- 5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthin gum
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 4 large eggs, separated
- 1 c. fresh minced basil
- 2 cups milk
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 4 tablespoons lemon zest
- Raspberry jam
Instructions
- Cream Sugar, lemon zest, vanilla, lemon extract and egg yolks. Mix lemon juice and milk and let sit to coagulate. Whip egg whites until soft peaks form. Mix dry ingredients together.
- Fold all the ingredients together until combined.
- Pour into well greased cake pan. If you want to be able to remove the cake from the pan, grease the pan, flour it, and then use cooking spray.
- Bake 30 to 45 minutes at 375F, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Time will vary depending on the cake pans used.
- Assemble the cake with raspberry filling between layers for the jam. This cake is good with or without frosting, but we used a simple buttercream frosting and it was wonderful!
- OPTIONAL FROSTING
- 3 cups powdered Sugar
- 1.5 cups butter
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric (optional if you want yellow color)Enough tablespoons cream to make the frosting creamy and smooth
