Strawberry Basil Pound Cake

This week, I was gifted with so many things that I just knew I needed to show them off! First, some lovely girls from the church across the street were walking around our neighborhood handing out bags of fresh basil and oregano from their community garden! Isn't that awesome? It smelled SO good, folks.

I was also a lucky recipient of some bakeware tools from Pyrex, thanks to Foodbuzz! They sent me some magnetic measuring cups, magnetic measuring spoons, and a large glass mixing bowl. Guys, I can't tell you how happy I am with these items. The cups and spoons are shaped with a little spout on them for easy scooping and pouring, and their magnets make them SO easy to keep together. The mixing bowl is the perfect size for mixing by hand, and my rubber spatula is pretty much in love with its smooth interior. Yay, thank you Pyrex and Foodbuzz!

And thanks to the suggestion of a friend, I decided to make a strawberry and basil pound cake with all of my new stuff! Luckily I already had some strawberry puree that I'd been planning to use for something else. And I have just bought the most adorable mini loaf pans at the craft store!

This recipe makes four small (7 oz) pound cakes, or one large pound cake.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 5 tbsp butter, melted
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour*
• generous 1/4 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• generous 1/3 cup strawberry puree
• 2 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped

*My GF flour mixture consists of 3 parts brown rice flour, 3 parts white rice flour, 2 parts potato starch, 1 part tapioca starch, and 1/2 tsp xanthan gum per cup of flour. The original recipe called for cake flour, which is fine, too, but for a gluten-free recipe, I prefer not to use cake flour most of the time.

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325° F and spray your loaf pans with cooking spray.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
3. Stir the butter and sugar until well mixed (feel free to use your kitchenaid for this, but if you don't have one, hand mixing works beautifully).
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition.
5. Add the flour mixture slowly, mixing well until it is cohesive.
6. Add the strawberry puree and basil and mix until well combined.
7. Pour into pans (for my mini pans it was about 1/2-cup batter per pan - it made 4 cakes).
8. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Serving and Eating

Friends, this cake is so good that my boyfriend can't stop eating it! I suggest that you serve it with some vanilla cream (recipe here), or even a nice strawberry glaze on top. The strawberry flavor in this cake isn't overwhelming, but the entire combination is a sweet, gently spicy, soft cake.

[The photo at the top of this blog has been entered in the Gluten Free Photo Contest!]