Homemade Strawberry Cake Recipe (with cream cheese frosting)

To me, this is the perfect strawberry cake recipe: ultra plush cake layers with a vibrant strawberry cream cheese frosting. Freeze-dried strawberries are the key to getting the perfect strawberry flavor without a runny buttercream or overly moist cake!

After testing 9 cakes in search of the best strawberry cake recipe, I had settled on two cake recipes as my personal favorites. But when one of the the sites (Kara’s Couture Cakes) suddenly disappeared, I (and other readers) were saddened to no longer have access to her wonderful recipe.

Luckily, one reader had saved her recipe and sent it to me (thank you Katherine!). After re-testing the recipe, I’m sharing my slightly adapted version of Kara’s strawberry layer cake. Don’t worry, you can still find the original version here.

I’ve always loved this homemade strawberry cake primarily for its uniquely plush texture that’s not crumbly, heavy or overly moist in the way cakes loaded down with strawberry purée can be. I love the contrast of the delicate strawberry cake flavor against the more flavorful strawberry cream cheese frosting!

If you’re looking for more celebration cakes, I’d recommend my olive oil layer cake, this strawberry lemon cake, or this banana s’mores cake is a crowd favorite!

How I updated the original recipe

• Updated the frosting to use freeze-dried strawberries: I find fresh strawberry puree in the frosting tends to make it a little runny. This cream cheese frosting is very similar to Sally’s Baking Addiction with freeze-dried berries. I find this is the best way to inject tons of flavor without affecting the texture. My version adds a bit more powdered sugar (for a thicker texture) and omits vanilla (because I wanted the strawberry flavor to shine).
• Made the strawberry simple syrup optional: You can absolutely add this if you want more strawberry flavor and moisture! I didn’t mind a more subtle strawberry flavor and am generally too lazy to bother with this step. However, I would add it if you want a stronger strawberry flavor. I’ve also added updated measurements for the optional simple syrup to prevent you from having tons of excess syrup.
• Adjusted some of the weight/volume measurements: For example: Kara originally listed 3 1/4 cups flour as 16 oz, which would be 3 3/4 cups flour by my estimation. Ultimately, I tested this with 3.5 cups of flour (assuming 120g per cup) and it was perfect.

Why you’ll love this homemade strawberry cake

• A plush yet sturdy and fluffy cake: Using the reverse creaming method along with a mix of butter and oil gives this cake an irresistibly fine and soft crumb that just melts in your mouth! This is sturdy enough to stack if you’re making a layer cake.
• Airy texture: Whipping the batter for the stated time (around 7 minutes total) helps develop the gluten structure and aerates the batter. This gives the strawberry cake a beautiful lift and slightly dense but light texture.
• Delicate strawberry flavor: At its core, this is a white cake with simple ingredients like egg whites and whole milk for moisture. This allows the freeze-dried strawberries in both the cake and the strawberry frosting recipe to shine with what tastes like real strawberry flavor. No artificial flavor via strawberry extract or fresh strawberry reduction needed!

How to make this strawberry cake

Find the full recipe below in the recipe card!

To start, preheat your oven to 350°F and grease and line 3 8-inch pans with parchment paper. Kara’s original recipe uses 2 8-inch pans and tortes the layers to make 4 total layers. I prefer baking 3 separate layers since it takes a little less baking time, but you can use either method.

Tips and Tricks

For the most successful cake texture, I highly recommend these two tips:

• Mix for the stated times exactly: I typically err on the side of undermixing rather than overmixing batter to avoid building up the gluten (and thus resulting in a tough cake). Make sure that you mix the batter for no longer than 7 minutes after adding the wet ingredients to avoid an overly dense texture.
• Room temperature ingredients: It is incredibly important to temper (bring to room temperature) the wet ingredients for a fluffy, emulsified batter.
  
  You can always set out ingredients an hour or two before baking to temper them. But if you forgot, here’s how to quickly bring ingredients to room temperature:
  • Egg whites: you can soak whole eggs in hot water for 5-10 minutes to quickly warm them up before separating. If using egg whites from a carton, measure out your desired quantity into a sealed container and place in hot water for 5-10 minutes.
  • Milk: Microwave for 20-30 seconds to remove the chill before using.
  • Butter: If your kitchen is quite warm (like mine during summer), chop the butter into 1/2″ cubes and leave out to sit as you mix the rest of the batter/preheat the oven. If not, you can either microwave cubes of butter for 10-15 seconds until just softened. Or fill a glass with hot water, dump it out, then invert the steamy glass over a stick of butter for 5-10 minutes.

For the strawberry cream cheese frosting recipe:

This is essentially a plain cream cheese frosting with freeze-dried strawberry powder for flavor!

You’ll need softened butter but the cream cheese can come straight from the fridge. (Warm cream cheese can result in runny frosting.)

Cream the butter until smooth, then add the cold cream cheese and beat until smooth. Mix in the remaining 1.2 oz of freeze-dried strawberry powder and salt until smooth. With mixer on low, gradually add the powdered sugar. Whip on medium high for 1-2 minutes, or until frosting looks fluffy and creamy. Add 1-3 tbsp of cream or milk to thin out the texture, if desired.

To assemble, brush the cooled cake layers with the strawberry simple syrup (if using). As a shortcut, you could also brush the layers with strawberry jelly or strawberry jam in lieu of the syrup.

Frost the cooled cake layers. This amount of frosting is enough to easily frost a 3-layer 8″ cake with minimal decorations if you’re using a piping bag. Garnish with fresh strawberries and enjoy!

Strawberry cake FAQ

One question that always comes up when I make strawberry cake is: what would the cake look like if I didn’t use pink food coloring?

I’ve included a comparison photo below: the finished cake uses around 5 drops of Americolor Gel Food Color Electric Pink for a gentle pink color. In contrast, I baked off a single cupcake using the batter with no food coloring. You can see the color is a more neutral beige color with the occasional splotch of pink from the freeze-dried fruit.