Strawberry Cake – Tender strawberry cake layers with fresh strawberries and cream cheese frosting.
Inspiration
A couple years ago, I was in Dallas for my consulting job and had some time to grab lunch with my older brother. I travel to Dallas quite a bit for work and Chris always takes me to the yummiest restaurants (Porch, Smoke, Savor… to name a few). We usually don’t get a lot of time together, so we often skip dessert (insert sad face emoji here). This time around, however, we had just enough time to make a stop at the Cake Bar.
Of course, I wanted to order a slice of everything, but narrowed it down to two flavors: chocolate and strawberry (a customer favorite, I was told). I’m typically a chocolate lover, but this time (to my surprise) I was blown away by the strawberry cake. It was perfection; so flavorful and moist. I just couldn’t stop shoveling it into my mouth. I knew immediately that I had to recreate this cake when I got home.
Strawberry Cake
As soon as I got returned from my trip, I started looking at strawberry cake recipes. Based on my research, I knew I wanted to use flavored gelatin because it would give the cake an added punch of strawberry flavor that strawberry puree on its own didn’t seem to achieve in most recipes. The Cake Bar cake had such a great strawberry flavor. I’m convinced they used the flavored gelatin too. I’d love to find out someday!
The cake turned out super moist and fluffy, not dense like so many other strawberry cakes do. The sifted cake flour also helps to create a light cake.
So, as far as the cake goes, I’m giving it two thumbs up. I’m super happy with how it turned out and will be putting it in my arsenal of cake recipes.
Filling
When I originally made this strawberry cake, I paired it with a strawberry puree filling. I’ve since changed the filling and now fill the cake with more cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries. It helps to make the cake a little less sweet actually.
Frosting
I used to not love cream cheese frosting until I learned to make my own. This one is SO good! It’s my go-to cream cheese frosting. I’ve used it in so many cakes (you can see the list HERE). I use less cream cheese than most people do, I think. Just enough to give it a tart flavor, but not too much where the flavor steals the show.
I hope you love this cake as much as I do. And if you’ve ever had the Cake Bar version, I’d love to know how you think it compares!
Enjoy!
Could I add in 3/4 cup of finely ground toasted walnuts or would that change the texture too much?
You can definitely do that with the carrot cake recipe. Yum!
I posted that on the wrong recipe! Meant to post it on the carrot cake recipe. Oops.
To see if they use gelatin, you could always call and say you have an allergy to gelatin and see what they say! Easy way to find out 🙂
This looks amazing! Can’t wait to make it!
Question: why does the buttermilk have to be room temperature? Could it be cold or heated? I’m pregnant and get nervous about leaving anything out since that’s when bacteria grows. Would that destroy the cake?
Great question! Buttermilk and other “wet” ingredients better blend together and are better absorbed by the dry ingredients when they’re at room temperature – which helps the cake to rise more evenly. It wont’ ruin the cake if you use cold buttermilk.
Just made this version on Saturday. Wow. Like really… WOW. I had never baked cakes before and this is my 4th one from you. You rock. I was very surprised to like this cake so much. Plus it freezes great 😉
I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you!
Hi Courtney!
I’m wanted to ask can I make my own cake flour? I noticed you added cake flour instead of all purpose flour… I love following you and all your beautiful cakes 😊
Thank you
[email protected]😉
Hi! Thank you. Yes you can make your own cake flour – it’s an easy google search, but I prefer store bought cake flour because it has a slightly sweeter taste to it and gives the cake a light texture. I don’t think homemade cake flour gives the same result. It’s close though
Would love your recipe for the original strawberry purée filling too! I’m on the hunt for a great one. ❤️
Kudos with this newer version of the Strawberry cake! I thought the older recipe was great, but thanks for tweaking it cause I love it even more now! Amazing what an extra 3 tablespoons of cake flour will do! Happy dance at high altitude. : ) p.s. waiting anxiously for my cake disks!
I have been weighing my ingredients to make baking a little quicker. If I just convert all of the ingredients will the cake still come out right?
Yeah that should work.
Thank you for this great recipe I am looking forward to trying it and I am ure the gelatib makes all the difference: although I am not sure what kind of gelatin you are using… is the Jello a powder? or cubes of gelatin?
I live abroad and we only have plain gelatin powder (which we have to moisten first) or gelatin leaves (which we have to soak and squeeze…) ..
Jello powder! To make flavored jello!
I loved the cake! It was my first try baking a cake from scratch and completely decorating it. It had such a great flavor but the cake itself was dense. Do you have any idea on what I may have done to cause it or tips to avoid it in the future? I left it in the fridge decorated overnight and cut the next day.
That could have happened from over-mixing the cake batter or using old baking powder.
If I made this for a 3-layer 10 inch round cake, how should I multiply the recipe? 1 1/2 or 2x?
I would 2x it
Do you sift the cake flour before or after you measure it?
Do you find that the strawberries between the layers get soggy if you make this one ahead of time? Also assuming you wouldn’t freeze this one…
They’ll get soggy if you store it too long. I made this one the day before I served it and was happy with everything.
Is the frosting sturdy enough to be covered with fondant? Or should I make a buttercream?
You need to make a buttercream. The cream cheese frosting will be too soft.
Hi Courtney I was wondering if I could use egg whites from a container instead of a whole egg for this strawberry cake?
You can use them for the egg white portion but you need the yolk as well.
Hi!!! Can these be made as cupcakes as well? Or would that mess up the texture or anything?
Yes they can!
Love your blog! I’m going to make this recipe next week, can I add strawberry purée into the batter for this recipe? Thanks!
I would stick with the jello. You won’t be disappointed!
Would you say this cream cheese frosting is stable enough to do intricate piping? Or should I use a basic buttercream instead?
It’s a little softer so I would stick with buttercream for piping.
This recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of baking powder, but that is more than 4 grams. Is it supposed to be 1 teaspoon of baking powder?
No its one tbsp.
Did you sift the cake flour in this recipe? If so, do you do so after it is measured?
You sift after measuring!
For the four 6 inch cake pans, what is th baking time?
About the same time, keep your eye on it.
Hi Courtney! I’ve tried so many of your cakes and they’re amazing:) how would I convert this one to a sheet cake for 8-10 people?
Same recipe! Just baked for a longer time in the sheet pan!
This cake is amazing! The first two times I made it, it was extremely DRY. Then I noticed it was because I misread the recipe. I was cooking those poor cakes for 33 minutes instead of 22. Today I did it right and omg! Best cake EVER!! Super moist and the fresh strawberries in between each layer just really sat the cake apart from the others! Thank you for an amazing recipe!
I’m so glad you figured it out! It’s one of my favorites!
This cake recipe is amazing! So glad I tried it. I’ll be making it for my sisters birthday. One thing I noticed is that there is a tangy note to it, is that from the Jello? It’s making me wonder if I didn’t mix it well enough
Yes that could be from the jello!
Do I sift the cake flour first then measure? And if I’m making a 3 layer 9 inch cake, do I have to double the recipe one time?
Measure and sift. I would 1 1/2 the recipe!
Hi- what would be baking time and temperature for cupcakes? And how many will it yield? Thanks!
325 and about the same time. Keep an eye on them!
Hi Courtney
I’m planning on making this cake for my toddler’s 2nd birthday. She loves strawberry and I’ve never made a strawberry dessert that I like so this will will be interesting!
Just had a question re the icing: how would you rate the sweetness? Is it as sweet as American buttercream or more along the lines of SMBC?
It’s a little less sweet because it’s cream cheese but not SMBC.
I just saw in some comments about the egg whites where you said you’ll need the egg yolk as well. I didn’t see anywhere in this recipe where it mentioned using egg yolks… Maybe that was my problem? Can you help?
You don’t need egg yolks in this cake. Maybe you were thinking my strawberry lemonade cake where you save the yolks for the curd?
Hi Courtney,
I tried this cake for my daughters birthday. It had a nice strawberry flavor however it turned out very dry. Not sure what I did wrong. I had to bake it close to 30 minutes as the center came out wet until 25. Any suggestions to make it more moist? I have made your biscoff cake and that was so good. Thank you for all your recipe suggestions 😊
Can this recipe be used for cupcakes as well?
Of course!
You need to fix your typo of 1 TBS of
baking powder to 1 TS. I measured by grams.
Fixed. Thank you!
I think the extract is incorrect on the cake, is it a tablespoon or teaspoon, the grams are off on what a tablespoon would be.
Fixed! Thank you!
Your site is so very helpful…I decided to make this, this evening. It just came out of the oven and smells amazing. I have an issue with my cakes not being as tall and not sure what my problem is. Everything is fresh and I am carful not to overmix and new oven has oven thermometer in them. This might be a silly question but how tall are the cakes when they are done baking?
It’s ok! They should be a couple inches!
Probably would be a good idea to specify how much jello. I put 13 ounces of the jello in the mix and after it took 40 minutes to cook and came out super sour I realize it probably meant ONE, 3 ounce package of jello. 😞