James' birthday was yesterday, so naturally we celebrated on the day before yesterday. When I asked him what kind of cake he would like he asked if I'd saved any recipes online lately. It just so happened that I had noticed a recipe from the Christian Science Monitor for a Strawberry Basil Chiffon cake with Strawberry Basil Sauce a week or so ago and since we both so love strawberries and basil (although had never thought to try them together) it seemed the time was right to try this recipe out.
The ingredient list calls for seven egg yolks and seven egg whites, which both go into the batter, but the whites have to be whipped first. The recipe says to use a stand up mixer to whip them, but we own no such device. We usually just whip things by hand, but I decided to see if I could get peaks to form by using the immersion blender. Fail. They got very frothy, but never got stiff. I used them anyway, but the cake was probably not as light as it was meant to be. It was, however, still moist and delicious. I used just a bit less sugar than called for as I always want to be able to detect all the other flavors. The result was good. The cake was not too sweet and the flavor of the strawberries and basil were distinct. While the cake was a bit tricky, the sauce was super simple, and only took about 10 minutes. We served the sauce warm over the cake, along with some vanilla ice cream. The moist cake and warm sauce contrasted well with cool and smooth ice cream.
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