Strawberry Sheet Cake

If you're looking for a great Strawberry Sheet Cake recipe, we love this one! It has a soft, moist crumb and delicious strawberry flavor. Keep it in mind for birthdays, potlucks, or gatherings with family and friends!

Why we Love It

There are many reasons to love this recipe. Here are just a few!

• Super moist and flavorful
• Tastes great with all sorts of frostings from vanilla buttercream and strawberry buttercream to lemon cream cheese frosting and more.
• Can be made year-round with frozen strawberries, just as with our strawberry coconut cake and more.

A Quick Look at Ingredients

Here is a quick look at the key ingredients for this recipe (minus the frosting). You can find the complete details in the recipe card at the bottom of this post!

Cake Flour is popular in cake recipes for its lower protein content. This results in a softer crumb as there is less gluten formation. Lemon Buttermilk Cake, orange cake, and almond cake are just a few other recipes that contain cake flour.

Unsalted Butter is what we use in our cakes (rather than salted) as it gives us more control over the amount of salt in the recipe. If using salted butter, you can skip the salt in the recipe.

Frozen Strawberries or fresh strawberries work well in the strawberry puree. We used frozen, which we thawed and pureed in a blender (no need to do a reduction on the stovetop.)

Sour Cream adds richness to the cake without thinning the cake batter. We recommend full fat.

Strawberry Jello (or extract) gives an added boost of strawberry flavor. We used a couple of tablespoons of strawberry jello powder today, but if you have strawberry extract you can use two teaspoons that instead (McCormick and Watkins are two brands that we like). Without the added flavoring, the cake has a milder strawberry flavor from the puree.

How to Make a Strawberry Sheet Cake

You can find the full, printable recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps!

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, grease and flour a 9x13 sheet cake pan. We also like to line the bottom of the pan with parchment.
• In a medium sized bowl add the dry ingredients: cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk until well blended and set aside.

• In another bowl or measuring cup add these wet ingredients: sour cream, strawberry puree, vanilla extract, and strawberry extract (if not using strawberry jello powder). Blend with a fork and set aside.

• In the bowl of your mixer, mix the softened butter until smooth. Gradually add the white sugar (and 2 Tablespoons strawberry jello powder if not using strawberry extract). Mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until it is lightened in color and fluffy. In the photo below, it is pink already because I added the strawberry jello powder in with the sugar.

• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition until the yellow of the yolk is well blended. If adding pink or red coloring to your batter, you can do it at this time (or any time during mixing process).

• With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture alternately, beginning and ending with flour mixture (three additions of dry ingredients and two of wet). Mix just until combined.

• The batter will be fairly thick. Scoop it into the prepared sheet cake pan, smoothing over the top with the back of a spoon to smooth things out. We like to tap the filled pan on the counter a few times to minimize air bubbles.

• Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Bake times can vary.
• Start checking as the 30 minute mark approaches, and adjust accordingly. Let the cake cool 5 to 10 minutes then turn out.

For the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

This strawberry cream cheese frosting is a cross between buttercream and cream cheese frosting. It is a simple combination of softened butter and cream cheese, powdered sugar, strawberry puree, salt, and vanilla extract.

Just as with any frosting that contains cream cheese, it should be refrigerated until within 2-3 hours of serving the cake. If at any time the frosting becomes too soft for decorating, simply pop it in the refrigerator for a few minutes to thicken the consistency.

Decorating the Cake

Once the cake has cooled completely, it is time to frost! You can decorate the cake however you like, this is a pipeable frosting and is very easy to work with.

We frosted our sheet cake and then created a design on top using a small offset spatula.

Then, we decorated the top with fresh strawberries, and added a fat shell border around the base with a 1M piping tip.

Recipe FAQs

More Strawberry Cakes

In addition to today's Strawberry Sheet Cake recipe, we have many more strawberry cakes to share with you! Some of our most popular are our homemade strawberry cake, strawberry shortcake cake, strawberry pound cake, and strawberry lemonade cake.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Make sure to check out our complete Cake Recipes section, which includes our favorite scratch cake recipes as well as cake mix recipes!

We also have a huge cake decorating section of free tutorials that we'd love for you to see. Here, you'll find all sorts of simple cake designs or birthdays, baby shower cakes, bridal shower cakes, and more!

Strawberry Sheet Cake

BY Melissa and Bebe

This moist Strawberry Sheet Cake is moist and soft with wonderful strawberry flavor!

Prep Time: 20 minutes mins

Cook Time: 35 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Servings: 20

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Ingredients

• ▢ 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened (226g) (The butter should still hold its shape but should dent when pressed.)
• ▢ 2 cups white sugar (400g)
• ▢ 3 large eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for five minutes.)
• ▢ 1 cup sour cream (242g)
• ▢ ½ cup Strawberry Puree (121g)(Thawed, frozen strawberries or fresh strawberries, liquified in a blender. We did not cook the puree.)
• ▢ 2 Tablespoons Strawberry Jello powder (or 2 teaspoons Strawberry Extract) See notes
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
• ▢ 3 cups cake flour (plain in the UK) — if you do not have cake flour see substitution below (342g)
• ▢ 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder (7g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
• ▢ Red or pink coloring to tint the batter (optional) (we used a very small amount of red and pink)

For the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

• ▢ 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened (339g)
• ▢ 8 oz cream cheese. We recommend "full fat" cream cheese.
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
• ▢ ¼ cup strawberry puree (thawed frozen or fresh strawberries, liquified in a blender).
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (2g)
• ▢ 7 cups Confectioners sugar (adjust slightly up or down to your liking) (805g)
• ▢ Pink or Red Coloring Gel (Optional. We used a very small amount of each for tinting.)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, grease and flour a 9x13 sheet cake pan. We also like to line the bottom of the pan with parchment.
• In a medium sized bowl add the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to blend, set aside.
• In another bowl or measuring cup add the sour cream, strawberry puree, vanilla extract, and strawberry extract (if not using strawberry jello powder). Blend with a fork and set aside.
• In the bowl of your mixer, mix the softened butter until smooth. Gradually add the white sugar (and 2 Tablespoons strawberry jello powder if not using strawberry extract). Mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until it is lightened in color and fluffy.
• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears. If adding pink or red coloring to your batter, you can do it at this time (or any time during mixing process).
• With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture alternately, beginning and ending with flour mixture (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of wet). Mix just until combined.
• The batter will be fairly thick. Scoop it into the prepared sheet cake pan, smoothing over the top with the back of a spoon to smooth things out. We like to tap the filled pan on the counter a few times to minimize air bubbles.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Bake times can vary- Start checking as the 30 minute mark approaches, and adjust accordingly. Let the cake cool 5 to 10 minutes then turn out.

For the Frosting

• Mix butter on low to medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth.
• Add the softened cream cheese to the butter, mixing at low to medium speed until smooth and well combined.
• Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar beating on low speed until blended. Add strawberry puree. Add coloring gel if you are tinting the frosting.
• Continue to mix on low to medium speed until well combined and smooth.
• Store in the refrigerator. If making the frosting in advance, allow to sit on the kitchen counter until it comes closer to room temperature. You may need to remix.
• Frost the room temperature cake however you like. We frosted the cake, used an offset spatula to create a pattern on top, and decorated with fresh strawberries.

Storing the Cake

• Because of the frosting, this cake should be refrigerated in an airtight container, sealed bakery box, or under a cake dome. For best flavor and texture, remove the cake 2-3 hours before serving so that the cake and frosting have plenty of time to warm and soften.

Notes

Substitution for Cake Flour: 

• For each cup of flour in the recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch. This recipe has 3 cups of flour, measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• If frosting becomes too soft as you are decorating the cake, place the piping bag, bowl, cake, (or all three) in the refrigerator as need to firm things up.

Strawberry Extract/Flavoring: 

• Today, we used strawberry jello powder for an extra boost of strawberry flavor but if you have strawberry extract/strawberry baking emulsion on hand, you can use that instead, as we've done with our other strawberry cakes (2 teaspoons-which is 8g.)

 

This recipe makes about 7 cups cake batter. This works as a layer cake also! (For layer cakes, we most often do three 8 inch cake layers, but two 8 or 9 inch layers would work as well.)

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