One of my favorite finds while I was exploring a tea shop in Munich was a curious little tea called milky oolong tea. Milky oolong, also called jin xuan tea, has the toasty, nuttiness of oolong tea, but it also has these buttery, caramel-y notes, similar to Chinese milk candies. This flavor is the end result of oxidizing oolong tea, which causes it to yield a milder flavor. Hilariously, the tea itself originates from Taiwan, but I first encountered it in Germany of all places, so it is a tea that combines one country I have fallen in love with with the country I was born from. I still remember smelling it and the first thing I wanted to do was make milk tea with it. Based on the caramel-y and milky notes of the tea, it just is such a perfect dessert ingredient and one I am excited to use in other recipes as well! So needless to say, you can expect at least another 3 to 4 milky oolong desserts before the end of this year alone. In the case of this recipe, it came about because a longtime customer of mine requested a strawberry cake for her birthday! She had commissioned the cake from me around the time I had just returned from my trip to Munich, and the first thought I had was a strawberry and cream cake. And since strawberry and cream, as the name suggests, is such a dairy-forward cake, I wanted to further accentuate that using the milky oolong tea, just to bring more of those milk and cream notes to the forefront. The end result was a strawberry cake with a pleasant, mildly toffee-like aroma.

A while back, I made these adorable angel food cake and strawberry doughnuts creams. And I personally love pairing soft angel food cake with cream and berries. In this case, I am taking it a step further by soaking the angel food cake in a milky oolong-infused milk(try saying that 5 times fast), just to add another flavor to the otherwise mildly sweet but otherwise one note angel food sponge. I also made a fortified whipped cream, infused with the milky oolong, and layered up the sponge cake with that cream and the fresh strawberries. Overall, this recipe can either be a 3 out of 10 or a 7 out of 10 in difficulty, depending on both if you own a stand mixer and your level of comfort and patience in making a fortified whipped cream. With an angel food cake, it’s all about the whipped egg whites. These need to be whipped into a literal cloud, otherwise the cake will be dense, rubbery, and tough. Fortunately, the soak does help soften the cake to some degree, so there is a little room for error in terms of folding the batter together, even if a little more air is mixed out of the batter at any stage. For the fortified whipped cream, this one is made by dissolving gelatin into some of the cream, then allowing that to cool down before whipping it into stiff peaks. Since you need the whipped cream to support an entire cake, fortifying it with gelatin keeps the cake from falling over or sliding. What I love about this recipe is that it is relatively easy to make(again if you have a stand mixer, otherwise this will be an arm workout and then some), and you can swap out the fruit you feature with whatever you want, and still end up with a relatively similar result! While strawberries were the route I took with them, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, even fruits like pears and bananas can be used with this format, and still taste just as good!

For the angel food cake base:
6 egg whites
2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
a pinch of salt
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch

In a bowl, whisk the egg whites with sugar, vanilla, salt, and cream of tartar to stiff peaks. Sift into that the flour and cornstarch. Fold together all of your ingredients to form your batter. Spread the batter into a lined quarter sheet tray and bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes Allow the cake to fully cool before cutting out 6-inch rounds, using scraps as necessary so that you can get 3 rounds.

For the milky oolong soak:
1 loose tbsp milky oolong tea leaves
1/2 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

Heat the milky oolong tea leaves with whole milk on low for 15 minutes. Strain out the tea leaves and whisk in the vanilla and salt. Transfer the soak to an airtight container. Allow the soak to cool completely before using in the assembly process.

For the milky oolong cream:
2 loose tbsp milky oolong tea leaves
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, in 3 parts
2 tsp gelatin powder
a pinch of salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp confectioner’s sugar

In a pot, heat up the oolong tea leaves, one part of the heavy cream, the gelatin, and salt, stirring everything together on low until the gelatin and salt are dissolved into the cream and the tea has steeped in the mixture for at least 15 minutes. Strain out the tea leaves and allow the cream to fully cool. Transfer the cream into a mixing bowl and add in the remaining two parts of cream, the vanilla, and the sugar. Whisk everything together until stiff peaks form. Keep the cream refrigerated until time to assemble.

For assembly:
2 cups strawberries, halved
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp warm water
a pinch of salt

Line a 6-inch ring mold with an acetate collar and place onto a quarter sheet tray. Start by placing down your scrap cake layer into the bottom of the ring mold. Pour onto that roughly 1/3 of the soak. Spread onto that 1/3 of the cream. Then layer in half of the halved strawberries, with their flat sides facing outwards. Repeat this with the next layer. For the last layer, place down the cake first, then the soak, and then the remaining cream. Transfer the cake to the freezer and freeze solid, at least 2 hours. With the remaining strawberries, halve those again lengthwise so that they are slim quarters. Then dissolve the sugar and salt in warm water, then brush the strawberries with that so that they do not dry out. Unmold the cake and garnish the top of it with the quartered strawberries.