Summary of ingredients
This recipe has a few larger elements: vanilla cake, no-bake strawberry cheesecake, cream cheese frosting, and crunchy crumble. It’s easier to think of them as separate elements for the ingredients and the step-by-step recipe. Make sure you weigh all the ingredients separately for each item, so you don’t mix them up.
Cake flour – it is important to use it instead of 00 flour because it makes the cake much softer. Cake flour is also known as 000 flour. You can still use plain white flour, but the cake won’t be as light.
Butter – used to coat flour with a layer of fat. This will prevent the development of gluten within the flour, resulting in a very soft cake. In this recipe you cannot replace the butter with anything else.
Vegetable oil – used to make the cake really moist. Choose an oil that has no flavor, such as sunflower or canola oil.
Strawberries – the protagonist ingredient of this recipe. Use high-quality organic strawberries for maximum flavor. Fresh strawberries are used in the cheesecake, compote, inside the cake and on top as decoration.
Jelly – very important in setting the cheesecake. Since the cheesecake is inside the cake, it needs a setting agent so it can support the weight of the top layer. The recipe below uses powdered gelatine, but you can also use sheet gelatine (9g/1 tbsp powder = 4 sheets), vegan gel or agar agar.
Biscuits or biscuits – you can use any type. I recommend Biscoff Lotus, petit beurre, malted milk biscuits or graham crackers. For best results use crunchy biscuits.
Freeze-dried strawberries – used in crumble to add natural color and flavor. Do not replace it with fresh strawberries because they would make the crumble soggy. If you don’t have freeze-dried strawberries, replace them with strawberry jelly or eliminate them altogether.
