Fresh Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
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Tom’s birthday was last week, which meant it was time for my annual layer-cake-baking. It’s true, I pretty much only make layer cakes on Tom’s birthday.
I know what you’re thinking. That’s Tom’s birthday cake? I thought perhaps you made it for a 6 year old girl. No.
Tom very rarely comes out and asks for a specific birthday cake. I usually have to ask him like 10 times before I can get him to start thinking about it. This year, I spouted off 7 or 8 ideas I knew he’d like, and he decided on this fresh strawberry cake. I asked what kind of frosting he wanted, secretly hoping he’d respond “cream cheese” and he did (phew).
So, yeah, it’s not the most masculine looking cake on the planet. A fact that was made further obvious by my use of sprinkles, after I realized I neglected to save fresh strawberries for decorating. But that’s okay, because this cake is pretty awesome.
All of that gorgeous pink color is 100% natural. No gels or dyes or anything at all. Just strawberries. To achieve both the beautiful color and flavor, you’ll want to use in season, ripe (preferably organic) strawberries that are as red as you can find.
You can make the strawberry puree simply by processing macerated strawberries, or by cooking the macerated strawberries down, and then pushing them through a strainer. I went with the latter option because Shawnda said it would likely give the cake a more vibrant color and deeper strawberry flavor. Oh, and also? It was slightly quicker.
I made more puree than the original recipe, because I knew I wanted to include some in both the frosting and the filling. By the way, the frosting actually reminded me of this strawberry-sour cream ice cream, which you will not hear me complaining about. Anyway, the only other change I made to the recipe was using a little almond extract, because I love it so much and could probably just drink it by the gallon.
The cake is a snap to make. It takes a little time because the strawberries need to sit at room temperature for a while before you can make the puree, but after that it goes very quickly and is incredibly simple.
The resulting cake is one that is moist, delicate but sturdy enough to layer and frost, and downright delicious. We all loved it. The only thing that sucks about this cake is when it’s all gone, you have one very pissed off toddler.
Fresh Strawberry Cake
Cake adapted from Confections of a Foodie Bride (originally adapted from Cook’s Illustrated classic white cake and Good Things Catered); frosting recipe is my own
Strawberry puree:
2 lbs. strawberries, hulled and roughly chopped
2 tsp. sugar
Cake:
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
6 large egg whites
1.5 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
2.25 cups cake flour, sifted
1.75 cups sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
12 Tbsp. (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
To make the strawberry puree:
Place the strawberries in a medium sized pot/saucepan and toss with the sugar. Allow to sit at room temperature for about an hour, until juicy.
Add 1/3 cup water and simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until the berries are very soft.
Pour into a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl. With a rubber spatula or spoon, scrape and press the strawberries through the strainer until all of the juice is in the bowl and you’re only left with the juiceless pulp. Discard the pulp and transfer the juice back to the sauce pan. Simmer until the liquid is reduced down to 3/4 – 1 cup; set aside to cool.
To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF and grease two 8″ or 9″ round pans; line with parchment and spray with oil if desired.
In a medium bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the strawberry puree*, milk, egg whites, and extracts and mix until combined with a fork.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until mixed. Continue beating on slow speed and add the butter. Mix until combined and it resembles moist crumbs.
Add the wet ingredients and beat at medium speed for about 1 minute or until full and evenly combined. Stop mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl and hand beat for 30 more seconds.
Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and smooth the tops. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cakes comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes and then invert onto wire racks to cool completely before frosting.
*You will have extra puree. Some will be used in the frosting and if you have extra, you can use it in addition to the frosting to fill the cake.
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
12 oz. cream cheese, softened
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup strawberry puree
2-4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
Beat the cream cheese and butter with a stand or hand mixer until fluffy. Add the vanilla and puree and beat until just incorporated. With the mixer on low, add the sugar a little at a time. Add as much sugar, based on your taste preferences and the consistency of the frosting (I only used 2.5 cups, which is less than standard cream cheese frostings, because I felt this cake was already sweet enough).
Note: This frosting was the perfect amount for a layer of filling in between the cakes, and for covering the outside of the cake. I did not do any sort of special decorating, so if you want to pipe designs, or create a taller cake with more layers, you will want to increase the frosting amount.
Cake looks delicious
SO GOOD! I love strawberry cake 🙂 I made one with jello last year, and felt a little bad about that. This recipe made with pure strawberry puree is the perfect answer. Thank you, Elly!! 🙂
This looks delicious, bet it’s full of flavour! And it’s so pretty too 🙂
This cake is so pretty! I love this idea and totally need to try this!
Yum! I love this cake so much – the essence of strawberries, but cake. What’s better?
Now I am craving this cake…it looks so good I want to dive right in. Love all those strawberries!
It always make me so angry when I see strawberry cake recipes that rely on jello for their flavor and color. Serious, that is not the best we can do. But this is! Pretty, pink and utterly delicious!
I made this cake for a few friends, because it was a Tuesday and it seemed like a good idea. What a delicious, wonderful, amazing cake. Tasted just like strawberries! Who knew? I’d never seen a recipe for strawberry cake, but this was an enormous hit. Thanks so much!
So glad you liked it, Sarah!
Could i add some of the strawberry puree to a pre made batch of cake batter? Im hoping to make a neapolitan layer cake, and this be the strawberry layer.
I’m not sure, Louisa. I would think adding it to a pre-made batch would make the batter too runny, but I’m not a particularly experienced baker, so I don’t know.
I made this this afternoon. I was a little freaked out because I make my own cake flour.. and so.. that was a lot of baking powder, but the batter was delicious. I couldn’t find excellent strawberries, but the ones I used were fine; I just added a little more sugar. I did have to use a few drops of food coloring (just a pinch :)) for pinkiness. I also made it for a boy! Well, a man. My oldest son who I tknew would love it. It’s beautiful :). We’ll have it tonight!
Hope you and your son enjoyed it, Karen!
I only made the icing but it didn’t turn out well. The flavor was delish but despite adding 4 cups of powdered sugar, it was still very runny.
Sorry it didn’t work out for you, not sure why it was so runny.
Do you know if this can be turned into a triple layer cake with layers about 1/2 – 3/4 an inch thick? Or does it need to be doubled?
Shawnda (whose recipe it is) used 1.5x the recipe to make hers 3 layers. I think it depends on your cake pan sizes, too. For 9″ the original recipe would probably be a bit too thin, but I think for 8″ or smaller it could work.
Hi, Elly! I would love to make this cake but I’m more of a cupcake gal! 🙂 Do you know if this recipe would translate into cupcakes with the same measurements?
Thank you – either way I am absolutely making this frosting this week. It sounds amazing!
– Kat
Yes, I think it will work just fine. My guess is it would make around 18 cupcakes.
I tried this with a box recipe (Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake). I omitted the 1/3 cup oil and substituted 1/2 cup strawberry puree. I turned out ok, but not a strong enough strawberry flavor. (probably because of all of the other flavoring ingredients of the box cake mix) Next time, I’ll probably use a full cup of the strawberry puree, omit the oil, and reduce the water from 1 cup to 1/2 cup. The strawberry puree is spot on though. The most important part I found is to make sure that you make the reduction as stated, if you don’t, yes, it will be runny. (The frosting) For the puree, I did not add the 1/3 cup water as the strawberries already had plenty of liquid after cooking them tender. I used a food mill to squeeze every little bit of goodness from the berries, then passed them through a wire mesh. I believe that this process preserved the naturally occuring pectin in the fruit. I had 2 1/4 cups of strawberry puree, which, after I reduced by cooking, reduced down to 1 cup exactly. (have to be carefull though, don’t let it go to far, or you’ll have strawberry rock candy 🙂 )
Hi there!
I’ve used this frosting recipe several times. I LOVE your ratio of butter/cream cheese. There is something about this ratio that makes it the best. Lets face it, there are alot of recipes out there. I have figured out that the puree must be stained and not much liquid. Otherwise, it will be runny. Of course if you like it REALLY sweet then you don’t have to worry about it too much cause the confectionary sugar helps to thickin it. We like it not so sweet here. Thanks so much for your recipe! My sons request it and now their girlfriends do 🙂
Great, so happy it’s well-liked, Liz!
I forgot to mention that they all swear that the frosting tastes like Hagen Daz Strawberry Ice Cream. Thanks again for your perfect Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting recipe. I will use it for the rest of my life 🙂
I was super excited for this cake but idk what happened. It tasted like baking soda and blew up huge. Idk because none of the other reviews obviously had this problem but isn’t 4 tsps of baking soda a bit much?
It was still pretty good as long as it was covered in that amazing icing. I really wanted it to work out because back home there’s this coffee shop that makes the most amazing strawberry cake ever and this is the only recipe I could find that looks similar.
Oh I just googled baking powder, I was not aware it was a different thing. So don’t use baking soda in this recipe!! When I was making it I was thinking I’d never used so much in a recipe before but I thought surely that the people who made it knew what they were doing and then when it tasted like baking soda I was so confused.
Oops! Glad you figured it out.
I don’t usually comment on blogs but after making this cake I had to. I made this cake for a friend’s birthday and I received great reviews, everybody loved it. Usually I get mixed reviews on different recipes but this one was a hit. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I especially like the fact that it uses fresh ingredients, I’m a stickler for fresh. Again THANK YOU.
That’s great to hear, Kathy! We really love this cake, too.
Hi,
Great strawberry cake recipie! I made this for my daughter’s first birthday today and she loved it we all did! I wanted to make something with some nutritional content but sweet and this fit the bill. I think I will be making this for years to come. I absolutely loved the frosting which I prefer not to be too sweet. Thanks for posting!
Glad to hear it was a winner, Sierra!
Can you bake this in a 9 x 13 pan?
Janie, you should be able to but it will end up a little thinner than a normal 9×13 cake.