A few years ago, I created this Strawberry Lemonade cake that became an instant hit: cake flavored with fresh strawberries (pureed and reduced), filled with strawberry buttercream, topped with lemon buttercream – basically Summer in cake form! It’s been on my list to write an all-strawberry cake recipe ever since, and after getting a request for one via Instagram DM, I knew it was time. I took to the store for a pound of fresh strawberries and a package of freeze dried strawberries to give you the ultimate flavor profile. I promise, it’s as delicious as it is pretty to look at!
I know what you might be thinking: why fresh strawberries and freeze dried strawberries? After tons of testing, fresh strawberries are hands-down the best way to flavor a cake, while freeze-dried strawberries are hands-down the best way to flavor buttercream. Trust me, there is no way around it. The good news is that most groceries stores carry both, but if you have a hard time finding freeze-dried strawberries, you can always order them on Amazon (these are the ones I use, but I get them from my local Trader Joe’s).
When it comes to flavoring a cake with fresh strawberries, it’s not enough to just chop them up and add them to your batter (you’ll just have a vanilla cake with weird strawberry chunks). It’s also not enough to simply puree them, since the excess liquid tends to water down the flavor. Instead, you must puree and reduce the strawberries to intensify the strawberry flavor while evaporating most of the liquid.
For this fluffy and flavorful strawberry cake, I started with my favorite Vanilla Cake recipe as a base and adjusted the leavening agents to accommodate the acidity in the strawberries (aka I reduced the baking soda slightly). After the reduced strawberry puree hits room temperature, I whisked it together with the whole milk in the recipe and added it in at the end. Reducing the strawberries does make this recipe a little bit more involved, but it’s so worth it for the incredible flavor!
Remember how I said freeze-dried strawberries are best for flavoring the buttercream? This is because adding fresh (or even frozen) strawberries to buttercream will add way too much liquid and not enough flavor. As opposed to simply freezing strawberries, the process of freeze-drying eliminates all of the liquid from the berry, leaving only the intense flavor. After grinding those freeze-dried berries into a fine powder, adding them to buttercream is the only way (in my humble opinion) to get that refreshing, pure flavor you imagine when you think of strawberry buttercream.
After filling and frosting these beautiful cake layers with tasty strawberry buttercream, I decorated with pretty piping (using Wilton Tips 1M for the rosettes and 4B for the stars), fresh strawberries, and chamomile flowers. The flowers were an impulse on the way out of the store – I couldn’t stop imagining them on my final cake design and felt safe to use them because they’re 100% edible (although I would not recommend eating them because they don’t taste the best). They did make this cake look extra cute though!
However you decorate, one thing is for sure – this cake is a strawberry lover’s dream! And bonus if that strawberry lover also is a big fan of the color pink.
Homemade Strawberry Layer Cake
Ingredients
Strawberry Layer Cake
- 11 oz (312g) fresh strawberries, stems removed
- 3/4 Cup (180ml) whole milk, room temperature
- 2 1/2 Cups (265g) sifted cake flour* DIY recipe in notes
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 3/4 Cup (170g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 2/3 Cups (330g) granulated white sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/3 Cup (80g) sour cream, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 drops pink food coloring, optional
Strawberry Buttercream
- 2 Cups (452g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 Cups (34g) freeze dried strawberries**
- 6 Tbsp (90ml) whole milk, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 7 Cups (840g) powdered sugar
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
Make the Strawberry Layer Cake
- Make the Strawberry Reduction: After cutting off the stems of the strawberries, puree them using a food processor. Afterwards, you should be left with 1 cup of puree. Place the strawberry puree into a saucepan over medium-low heat and simmer for 30-35 minutes, stirring occasionally. When you’re done with the reduction, you should have about 1/2 cup (if you have more, keep cooking!). Place the reduced puree into an airtight container and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes, or until it reaches room temperature. Then, whisk it together with the whole milk and set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF and prepare three 6-inch or two 8-inch cake pans by spraying the sides with cooking spray and fitting the bottoms with wax or parchment paper circles.
- In a medium sized bowl, place the sifted cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, whip the butter on high until creamy, 2 minutes. Add the granulated sugar and beat together with the butter at medium speed for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. Turn the mixer to low and add the eggs one at a time, making sure each one is incorporated before adding the next. Add the vanilla and sour cream, then turn the mixer to high and beat for 1 minute.
- Keeping the mixer on low, add all of the dry ingredients at once until just combined, then add the strawberry milk mixture and pink food coloring (if using) until just combined, about 30 seconds. Give the batter a few stirs by hand to make sure everything is incorporated without over-mixing.
- Pour the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Cool the cakes in the pan for five minutes, after which you can turn them out and continue to cool them on a wire rack or sheet pan for several hours.
Make the Strawberry Buttercream
- With a food processor, grind the freeze-dried strawberries into a fine powder and set aside. You'll have between 1/4 and 1/3 Cup of strawberry powder after grinding.
- Whip the butter using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment on medium speed until it’s creamy and light in color (5-10 minutes). Add vanilla, milk, and strawberry powder and continue to mix on medium for 1 minute.
- Add the powdered sugar a few cups at a time, scraping down the bowl and paddle after each addition. Add the salt and mix on low for another 30 seconds.
Assembly
- After cooling and leveling the strawberry cake layers, fill and frost with strawberry buttercream. To create the look pictured, create a smooth buttercream finish with the strawberry buttercream. Then, divide the remaining buttercream amongst two piping bags – one fitted with Wilton Tip 1M and one fitted with Wilton Tip 4B. Pipe rosettes and stars in a crescent moon shape on top of the cake and as accents on the side of the cake. Finish the look by garnishing with fresh sliced strawberries and chamomile flowers.
Notes
- You can make the reduced strawberry puree up to one week before using in the cake recipe and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you’re ready to make the cake. Just bring it back to room temperature by letting it sit on the counter for at least an hour.
- The cake layers can be made ahead and stored at room temperature, wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to two days. Alternatively, you can wrap them and store in the freezer for up to two months before thawing and decorating.
- The buttercream can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. When you’re ready to use it, bring it back to room temperature and re-whip with your stand mixer on low for one minute to bring it back to frosting consistency.
Did you make this cake recipe? I want to know how it went! Leave me a comment below and feel free to tag @sugarandsparrowco on Instagram to show me. I love to see what you create!
Hi,
I would like to use this recipe to make 2 8” cake. Does anything change in the recipe or the baking time ?
Thank you
Hi Manija! This recipe will definitely work for two 8-inch pans (I just made that a few weeks ago!), no need to change anything in the recipe. I’ll update that in the instructions.
Tried the small batch recipe and it was amazing! Thank you. I do have one question, can you substitute the sour cream for mexican crema?
So happy you loved this recipe, Gabby! I’ve never tried this with mexican crema but my hunch is that it might make the batter too liquidy. The better substitute here would be plain yogurt. Hope that helps!
I’m hoping this feedback lands softly because it’s not my intention for it to do anything but. I was really disappointed with how this cake turned out. It was heavy and dry and the strawberry flavor was negligible. Also, I had to forgo using the buttercream recipe using freeze dried strawberries as the cost was exorbitant at over $45 alone for the needed amount. I had high hopes based on the other reviews.
Hi Jessica, are you sure that you reduced the strawberry puree enough? And where are you finding $45 freeze dried strawberries? I purchased a bag for about $9 at Costco that contained enough for the frosting in this recipe four times over. I don’t think your review is fair.
Hi! Can the buttercream be left out at room temp over night?
Hi Maria! Yes, it can be stored in an airtight container at room temp overnight. You’ll need to remix it on low speed with your stand mixer before decorating with it just so it returns to a smooth consistency.
Hello. Is the grams measurement for the cake flour accurate? 2.5c came up to be closer to 330g for me.
Hi Mariah! Sifted cake flour (sifted before measuring) weighs about 105g per US Cup, so 2.5 Cups ends up roughly 265g. If you’re measuring homemade cake flour (made with all purpose flour which is heavier than cake flour), it will weigh more. And if you’re not sifting the cake flour first, it will weigh more as well. If you’re in doubt, I would go with the gram measurement and sift your cake flour right into a bowl set on your zero-d out kitchen scale.
This cake looks awesome. Thanks so much for sharing it. I made it today for my daughter’s birthday tomorrow. But, I hit a snag and my cake has a texture of a heavy cake like Parkin The problem is, when I came to adding the eggs, they appeared to cuddle in the butter. This always happens to me. I had everything at room temperature. But my kitchen is always cold, about 18c/64f. Do you think that could be why? I was mixing by hand. Only added 1 egg at a time. Also, do you know you can get strawberry powder from Amazon? It worked amazingly for me, it tastes awesome in the buttercream.
Hi Helen! The curdling is normal during the addition of the eggs, but it should come together as a smooth cake batter by the end of the recipe after adding the flour mixture and milk. And when you say you mixed by hand, do you mean you used a hand mixer or a whisk? I’m not entirely sure what caused the cake to be so dense, but it’s typically from either overmixing or in this recipe it could also be not reducing the strawberries enough. If there’s too much liquid content in the strawberry puree it will make the cake a lot heavier.
PS thanks for the tip about strawberry powder on Amazon!
Hi. I plan on making this recipe with three 6-inch layers. Will there be a ton of leftover frosting? Should I halve the frosting?
Hi Sandy! I find that this recipe makes just enough frosting for a 3 layer 6-inch cake decorated in the style shown in this blog post. If you’re not doing any piping and not frosting a thick layer, you could probably get away with 3/4 of the frosting portion of the recipe.
Hi Whitney-
A question. I did read your post about this recipe and the reduction of fresh strawberries for the cake and the freeze dried strawberries for the buttercream. I do have the freeze dried strawberries and I also have Amoretti Wild Strawberry flavoring (which is absolutely amazing) and I have used both for buttercream. The question is: can the freeze dried berries be used for the cake with the Amoretti, or one or the other, instead of fresh berries? Just thinking…appreciate your knowledge and reply!
Hi Paula! So happy you’re loving Amoretti Wild Strawberry! You can absolutely use it in a cake recipe, but I would use my vanilla cake recipe (https://sugarandsparrow.com/vanilla-cake-recipe/) and add the strawberry flavor when you add the vanilla in the recipe. 1-2 Tbsp should be the perfect amount. No need to add freeze dried berries in the cake, they don’t do well in the baking process.
Hello, I am using 3 8″ pans so I am adding 1.5 to the cake ingredients. Is it recommended to do the same for the buttercream?? Thank you.
Hi Erinn! You should still have enough frosting for a triple layer 8 inch cake as-is. Enjoy!
Hi there!
Why not use only freeze dried strawberries in the cake? Wouldn’t that mean even less water added to the batter compared to the strawberry paste?
Thanks!
Hi Miche! I tried this recipe with freeze dried strawberries in the batter and the flavor wasn’t as good in the cake as it is in the frosting. I prefer the fresh strawberries in the cake and the freeze dried strawberries in the buttercream 🙂
Hello! I’m planning on making this cake but I don’t have whole milk. Can I use 2% or Skim instead?
Hi Grace! It should work to use 2% milk in a pinch, but whole milk does create a richer texture due to the extra fat.
Hi there! I can’t wait to make this!! Two questions– 1) should I double for 3 9″ cakes? I’m making for a birthday party with quite a lot of people. 2) Could I thaw frozen strawberries to make the puree? I just picked and froze them a couple weeks ago.
Thanks 🙂
Hi Rae! To make the perfect amount for three 9-inch layers, you’ll want to make 1.5x the recipe (multiply each ingredient by 1.5). If the math gets too complicated you can definitely double it but just note that you’ll have more than enough batter. And yes, you can use frozen strawberries for the puree! It may take longer to reduce them due to the extra water content but they work just as well as fresh berries. Enjoy!
Hi,
Thank you for posting this recipe. I am actually attempting to make it now. I do have a question regarding the puree, do I take it off heat and it goes directly to the fridge in an airtight container?
Thanks so much
Hi Joey! I do place the puree in an airtight container and let it cool in the refrigerator until room temperature. Hope that helps!
Can this recipe be made using three 8- inch pans?
Hi Tianna! Yes, it can if you make 1.5x the recipe. You’ll need to multiply each ingredient by 1.5 to have the perfect amount for 3 8-inch layers. Hope that helps!
I made this cake for my granddaughter’s 3rd birthday. It was delicious!! Everyone loved it. I did add strawberry filling, but this is going to be my go to strawberry cake from now on. Thank you!
Yay, Tonya! I’m so happy to hear this was a hit and happy birthday to your granddaughter!
This looks delicious! I’m wanting to make a number shaped cake from a 9×13 pan size (and cut the number shape and frost) how high do you think it would rise and how much baking time to start checking for doneness? Any other advice greatly appreciated! Thanks 🙂
Hi Peg! I just baked this in a 9×13 pan and it rose to about 2 inches tall. Bake at 350F for 35-40 min!
Hi! I have made a few of your cakes and they have all been huge hits! Thank you so much for sharing your creativity and recipes.
Is there an easy way to calculate this recipe to make a three-tiered 4-inch cake? If this has already been answered somewhere, I apologize I missed it.
If it is possible, what other changes are necessary like bake time and/or temperature?
Thank you again!!
I’m so happy my recipes have been hits, Lindsey! To make a mini version of this cake (3-layer 4-inch), you’ll want to scale the recipe down by 1/3. I usually use a recipe scale calculator like this one to do the math for me: https://www.inchcalculator.com/recipe-scale-conversion-calculator/. To bake it, bake at 350F for about 18-22 minutes. Hope that helps!