Strawberry Velvet Cake
This moist Strawberry Velvet Cake is soft and light with wonderful strawberry flavor. It makes a great cake for birthdays, Valentine's Day, spring & summer gatherings, and more! This can be made as a two layer 9 inch cake or three layer 8 inch round.
Servings: 15 servings
Ingredients
- 8 oz (226g) cream cheese, room temperature (we used one 8 oz package, full fat.)
- 1 ½ sticks (168g) unsalted butter, room temperature (or close to room temp) (shouldn't be overly soft)
- 2 cups (400g) sugar
- 6 egg whites room temperature
- 3 cups (342g) cake flour See notes if substitution is needed.
- 2 teaspoons (8g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (3g) baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
- ¾ cup (182g) buttermilk (See Notes for substitution)
- ¼ cup (54g) vegetable oil (We use canola oil)
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons strawberry extract or baking emulsion (We used McCormick) (8g) (If you don't have strawberry extract, you could also use 1½ tablespoons strawberry jello powder instead. Without any strawberry flavoring, the cake will still have strawberry flavor but it will be much lighter.)
- ½ cup Reduced Strawberry Puree (We started with one cup pureed/blended strawberries (about 8-10 oz) and reduced it in a saucepan to ½ cup.) Fresh or Frozen strawberries are fine.
- ¾ cup fresh strawberries, sliced into small pieces. (plus additional for in between cake layers)
- Pink Coloring Gel/Food Coloring (optional)
Filling
- 1 cup (240g) heavy cream
- ¼ (29g) cup powdered sugar
- 1 (4g) teaspoon vanilla extract
- sliced fresh strawberries (about ½ cup -¾ cup. Adjust to your liking.)
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
- 16 oz cream cheese softened (452g)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (2g)
- 6 cups confectioners sugar (690g) (Adjust amount up or down to your liking)
Instructions
Strawberry Reduction
- Use a blender to liquify/puree strawberries (approx 8-10 oz) to make one cup of puree. Pour into a saucepan and heat over medium heat in a saucepan for about 15 minutes. **If you don't have a blender, you can mash the strawberries as the heat in the saucepan, using a fork or potato masher, etc.
- Heat at a gentle simmer (rather than a rapid boil), reduce to low-medium as needed. It will thicken and reduce. Stir occasionally. Once it has reduced by about half, pour into a measuring cup of heat proof bowl and allow to cool. (You can refrigerate to speed up the cooling). If you reduced to under ½ cup, supplement with a little water to reach ½ cup.**It is fine to do this step the day before if you'd like and refrigerate. The purpose of reducing is to have all of the flavor of one cup of strawberries without the excess liquid.
For the Cake Layers
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans. We like to line the bottom of our cake pans with circles of parchment paper. *If you prefer three layer cakes, you can also use three 8 inch pans.
- Next, separate your eggs, saving only the 6 egg whites for this recipe. Set them in a bowl to the side.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.
- Wet Ingredients: In another bowl or measuring cup, add the buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract and strawberry extract, and cooled, reduced strawberries. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and cream cheese and mix at medium speed until smooth.
- Gradually add the sugar and mix at medium speed for 2-3 minutes.
- Mixing on low speed, add the 6 egg whites one at a time (it's fine to estimate as they are all in the same bowl), mixing to incorporate after each addition.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk/strawberry mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (We did 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet). If you'd like to add pink coloring, you can do that at any time.
- Mix the batter just until well combined- be careful not to over-mix. Gently stir in the ¾ cup of finely sliced strawberries. Divide the batter between the two prepared 9 inch pans.
- Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, adjust time as needed.) *Baking times may vary slightly. (If baking three 8 inch layers, start peeking in after 25 minutes).
- Once done, remove from oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pans on a wire rack before turning out.
- This recipe makes 7 ½ cups of batter.
For the Whipped Cream Filling
- Chill the mixing bowl and beaters/ whisk attachment in the freezer for 10 minutes.
- Pour the whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract into the chilled mixing bowl, begin beating on low speed gradually increasing to medium high speed.
- The cream begins to thicken (approx. 1 ½ minutes) and stiff peaks form- be careful not to overmix. This happens fairly quickly! At "stiff peak" stage, peaks form and hold their shape when beaters are lifted. This is when it's ready.
For the Cream Cheese Frosting
- Add the softened butter to the bowl of your mixer. Beat on low to medium speed until the butter is smooth.
- Cut the softened cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, along with the salt, mixing at low to medium speed until incorporated. If you are using a hand mixer you may need to soften the cream cheese a bit more.
- Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar mixing on low speed until blended.
- Increase mixing speed slightly and beat until fluffy. Be careful not to overmix.
- This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use, let it soften slightly (do not microwave) and remix.
Assembling the Cake
- Place the first strawberry velvet cake layer on the pedestal or cake plate. Pipe a dam of the frosting around the edge of the cake (about ½ inch from the edge) using a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away. If you don't have a piping bag, just keep the filling from the edge of the cake to prevent it from escaping from the sides.
- Fill the top of the layer (within the dam) with whipped cream. Top with sliced strawberries.
- Top with the second cake layer.
- Fill in any remaining gaps between the cake layers with frosting using the piping bag with tip snipped away. Crumb coat the cake with a thin layer of frosting. Chill in the freezer for 10-15 minutes (or longer in the refrigerator) to firm things up.
- Apply second coat of frosting, smooth with bench scraper or spatula. Decorate to your liking. I added texture to my frosting with an offset spatula and added a bottom border with a 1M piping tip, and topped with fresh strawberries.
- The cake should be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container or under a cake dome, etc.
- ***Remove the cake from the refrigerator 2-3 hours before serving so that it has plenty of time to warm and soften. Cakes containing butter firm up when chilled and so they need time so soften before serving.
Notes
Substitution for Cake Flour: Using all purpose flour (plain in UK) to make Cake Flour: For each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK). This recipe has 3 cups of flour so you will measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend
Substitution for Buttermilk: To make ¾ cup "buttermilk", add 1 Tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice to a measuring cup. Add milk to the ¾ cup mark.
Refrigeration: Because of the whipped cream filling, this cake should be refrigerated. Remove from the refrigerator about 2 hours before serving so that it has plenty of time to warm to room temperature for best texture and flavor.