Strawberry Cake {A Scratch Recipe}
We have fallen in love with this flavorful scratch Strawberry Cake.
This strawberry layer cake has become one of our favorite recipes, with its moist and soft cake layers and big strawberry flavor.
There are so many frostings that would pair perfectly with this cake, but cream cheese frosting may be my favorite.
Table of Contents
Why we Love it
- Moist, tender cake layers
- We love cakes with fruit for their light and refreshing flavor (as with our pineapple cake, lemon cake recipe, raspberry cake, and so many more!)
- Wonderful strawberry flavor from strawberry puree and strawberry extract, as with our strawberry coconut cake and more.
- Plenty of batter for three 8 inch cake layers
- Works great with frozen strawberries, making it a perfect year-round cake!
- Makes a great birthday cake recipe, special occasion cake, and more.
Frostings for Strawberry Cake
This moist strawberry cake is bursting with wonderful strawberry flavor, and tastes amazing with these frostings and fillings (and many more)!
- Strawberry Filling
- Chocolate Buttercream (if making a chocolate covered strawberry cake!)
Fresh vs. Frozen Strawberries
You don't have to wait for strawberry season to enjoy this delicious strawberry cake. It calls for strawberry puree made from fresh or frozen strawberries.
We think you'll love the fresh strawberry flavor that more than a cup of strawberry puree lends to the cake.
Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing
This cake calls for the Reverse Creaming Method of mixing, for a moist and tender cake. The ingredients are added in a different order than the traditional creaming method, resulting in a slightly tighter crumb and velvety texture.
*If you would prefer to use the traditional creaming method for this fresh strawberry cake recipe, you can find it in the Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake recipe!
How to Make Strawberry Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (This recipe uses the reverse creaming method as is explained above.)
Grease and flour three 8 x 2 inch round cake pans - I like three layers because it gives us an extra layer of filling. *We also like to line our prepared pans with parchment circles.
- In a separate bowl, combine room temperature eggs, strawberry puree, vanilla, strawberry extract, pink food coloring (if desired). Blend together with a fork.
- In the mixing bowl for your stand mixer, hand whisk the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt) for 30 seconds to combine. With your mixer on low to medium speed, and using the paddle attachment, add the pieces of butter, a few pieces at a time, also add the oil at this time. Mix until the dry ingredients form moist crumbs that look like coarse sand.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. With the mixer on LOW speed, SLOWLY add ½ of the egg mixture/wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, increase the mixer to medium speed and beat for 1 ½ minutes, the batter will be thick and fluffy.
- Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating 20 seconds after each. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and pour the cake batter into prepared pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake layer comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. then turn out. This recipe makes about 7 ½ cups of batter.
Will this Strawberry Cake Recipe work for Cupcakes?
Yes, you can make strawberry cupcakes with this recipe, however they will have little to no dome. This true for many of our scratch cake recipes.
Decorating the Strawberry Cake
Decorate the Strawberry Cake however you like with your favorite strawberry frosting or a recipe that pairs well with strawberry flavor. We crumb coated our cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and then immediately piped the spiral patterns that you see in the photo using a star tip 21.
I love the piped-all-over look and it is also very forgiving! Simply start piping in the center and spiral outward, clockwise as many until you reach the size that you want. Repeat until the cake is finished ;0)
Doctored Cake Mix Version of Strawberry Cake
If you prefer a doctored boxed cake mix recipe, we have a great one for you: Strawberry Cake: Doctored Cake Mix Recipe.
This easy strawberry cake always gets rave reviews and uses real strawberries along with other flavorings for a delicious strawberry flavor.
More Strawberry Cakes
We've made several delicious strawberry cakes over the years! Here are just a few of our favorites. You can find our full collection of favorites here: Strawberry Cakes, Fillings, and Frostings!
Some of our favorites are our Homemade Strawberry Cake (which contains cream cheese in the cake batter for a velvety texture), Strawberry Bundt Cake, and Strawberry Pound Cake.
Our Strawberry Shortcake Cake (with pound cake layers and fresh strawberries) as well as our Strawberry Lemonade Cake are popular spring and summer cakes also!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Strawberry Cake from Scratch
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs room temperature ( can warm the eggs by putting in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
- 1 ½ cups (340 g) strawberry puree .I used frozen strawberries that were lightly sweetened, you could also use fresh. Puree the strawberries in food processor or blender
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons (8g) strawberry extract
- 2 to 3 drops AmeriColor Pink or your pink coloring of choice optional but makes for a prettier shade of pink
- 3 cups (342 g) cake flour
- 1 ¾ cups (350 g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon 14 g baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- ¼ cup (50g) vegetable oil
- 1 stick (113g) unsalted butter, slightly softened. (We cut butter into small pieces so it can be added slowly during mixing process. I cut mine into ½ to 1 inch slices onto waxed paper on the countertop, letting it soften only about 5 to 6 minutes.)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease and flour three 8 x 2 inch round pans
- In a separate bowl, combine eggs, strawberry puree, vanilla extract, strawberry extract, pink coloring (as desired). Blend together with a fork.
- In the bowl of your mixer, hand whisk the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt) for 30 seconds to combine. With your mixer on low to medium speed, add the pieces of butter, a few pieces at a time, also add the oil at this time. Mix until the dry ingredients form moist crumbs that look like coarse sand.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Method is important when using Reverse Creaming, so with the mixer on LOW speed, SLOWLY add ½ of the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, increase the mixer to medium speed and beat for 1 ½ minutes, the batter will be thick and fluffy.
- Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating 20 seconds after each. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and pour into prepared pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans 10 min. then turn out.
- Makes 7 ½ cups batter
We think it helps with making a cake moist but if there is a time issue this recipe will be fine. Frosting a cake also helps to retain moisture. Keeping it covered in the refrigerator will retain moisture also. Because it is a sheetcake, chill the completed cake to firm up the frosting, then cover in plastic wrap. Remove from the refrigerator a couple of hours before serving. Take the plastic wrap off before the frosting softens. Hope all goes well.
Thank you so much! I was thinking of putting it in a bakery box and wrapping the box in plastic wrap while in the fridge. Fidnt thibk about just wrapping the cake! You're the best!!!
Thank you so much! I was thinking of putting it in a bakery box and wrapping the box in plastic wrap while in the fridge. Didn't think about just wrapping the cake! You're the best!!!
Wrapping a bakery box is perfect then you will be ready for transporting.
Hi, I am looking forward to making your strawberry cake, when i liquify the frozen strawberries should I drain off the excess liquid? I wasn't sure if the cake will be too soggy. I don't want to spoil it..
Hi Wendy, I did not thaw my frozen strawberry enough to have liquid to drain. I thaw them just enough to cut into pieces so they will puree faster. Measure 1 1/2 cups (340 grams) puree and all will be good. I hope you will enjoy the recipe.
If my strawberries were unsweetened, would you add sugar to the purée before adding it into the recipe? Thank you ????
Hi Tim, Some strawberries are sweeter than others. You could taste one of the strawberries and see what you think. If you think they are not sweet enough, I would use only 1 to 2 tablespoon sugar because there is 1 3/4 cup sugar in the cake. The only frozen strawberries that were available to us when we made the cake were slightly sweetened.
My daughter asked for a strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream for her 30th. I would love to know how to adjust the recipe for a 9x13 because that is what she asked for. I find a 9x13 does not always bake up level, but frosting fixes many problems. She is not a fan of cream cheese frosting, so I guess I’m on the hook for SMBC unless adding strawberry powder will provide enough tart to cut through the sweet of an American buttercream. What do you think? I’m a fan of reverse creaming, so I think yours will yield a great cake
Hi Laurie, This recipe makes 7 1/2 cups of batter and this is enough for a one layer 9x13 sheet cake. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Check at 30 minutes. We have never used strawberry powder in our cakes or frostings but I don't think it would cut the sweetness of buttercream. You can cut the sweetness of American buttercream with the addition of salt. Begin with 1/2 teaspoon salt, adding more as needed. Does your daughter like mascarpone? It is similar to cream cheese but is less acidic and has a very light and creamy taste. Below is a link to our Lemon Buttermilk cake recipe, it uses a Whipped Lemon Mascarpone frosting. If you substitute strawberry extract for the lemon extract and leave out the lemon zest you will have a Whipped Strawberry Mascarpone frosting. It is a very light tasting frosting. Another option is to add pureed strawberries to the top of you baked and cooled sheet cake or just sliced strawberries would be good. Top the strawberries with Whipped Cream. You could decorate the top with more strawberries. I will add a link to our whipped cream recipe below. Hope she loves her cake.
https://www.mycakeschool.com/?s=lemon+buttermilk+cake
https://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes-tutorials/sweetened-whipped-cream/
Wow. Thank you so much for replying, and so quickly, and with such great options. You have answered all my questions, and more.
How about trying strawberry preserves in this?? What do you think? I bake under Texas Cottage Law and can't use real strawberries but they do allow preserves. I've got a cupcake recipe that I use them in and it does perfectly.
Hi Robin, We have not tried using strawberry preserves, so I'm not sure of the outcome. It's good to know that you had success using it in cupcakes. Please let us know if you give it a try with this recipe.
Hi, I have made this recipe several times over the last few years and it has always come out great, but last night, after baking and letting the layers cool, I noticed they shrunk in size in the cake pan. What happened? I've never had a cake shrink before.
About how long does it take to mix the dry ingredients, butter, and oil until it is the texture of coarse sand? Thank you.
Hi Rachel, it can vary a little but I would say under a minute-- maybe 30-45 seconds. You can find more details on the reverse creaming method here if you'd like to see our video:
https://www.mycakeschool.com/reverse-creaming-method-of-mixing-a-cake-video-tutorial/
Thank you so much!