Torta Amor de Albahaca (Basil Thousand-Layer Love Cake)
Pastry chef Josefina Venegas Meza shares the recipe for a Chilean take on a mille-feuille that she made as her wedding cake. Photos by Isobel Macmillan-Scott and Josefina Venegas Meza.
Good morning, and welcome to Vittles! Today, pastry chef Josefina Venegas Meza shares a simplified recipe for her wedding cake, a Chilean take on a mille-feuille made with dulce de leche, raspberries, basil-infused crème pât, and shop-bought puff pastry.
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One of the first things I knew when I got engaged was that I was going to make my own wedding cake. I wanted the cake to reflect my Chilean heritage, and to be playful and stress-free to bake. So, my then-fiancé and I decided to go with a twist on a torta de milhojas, a Chilean take on mille-feuille that has become a fixture at pretty much every birthday party or as a teatime treat. While traditional tortas de milhojas are simply filled with manjar – Chilean dulce de leche – we opted to make a torta amor, a version that also includes crème pâtissière and fresh berries.
We got married in my tiny hometown of Nirivilo in the heart of Maule, a big wine and agricultural region. Even now that I live in London, the smell of fresh basil always transports me back to summer there. To evoke this sense of place in the cake, I infused the crème pâtissière with fresh basil: its delicate flavour, combined with the tangy raspberries I chose to use, helped to offset some of the sweetness of the manjar.
The old-fashioned house where we had our wedding did not have shiny professional baking equipment or a reliable oven, and there was no way I was going to attempt lamination in 35°C degree heat, so I cheated and bought pre-made hojaldre (puff pastry). I knew that the flavours were bold enough to ensure that the cake would shine anyway.
We got married on the first Saturday of the year under the shade of a níspero tree. After a buffet style lunch of Chilean classics, including pastel de choclo, ceviche, empanadas, breads, and salads, the groom and I disappeared into the kitchen (although he is not a chef, my husband made every component of the cake with me). Having assembled the cake the night before, we put our aprons on and finished decorating it. We spread soft, undulating layers of crème diplomat on top of the final layer of pastry, upon which we placed strawberries and rose petals. We surrounded the base of the cake with a bed of fig and vine leaves that we had collected from the garden.
The result was original and lavish, in a low-key, rustic style, with gorgeous and striking colours and bold flavours. We brought the cake out, served it to all our guests, and then danced under the starry sky. The morning after, everyone who stayed in the house with us had leftover cake for breakfast, a postscript to a beautiful day.
Torta Amor de Albahaca
Makes 1 cake
Time 2 hrs 30 mins plus cooling (including overnight)