Homemade Strawberry Cake

We have a new favorite homemade strawberry cake to share with you!

This incredibly moist, fluffy cake would pair perfectly with a number of fillings and frostings, and has amazing strawberry flavor!

Today we have filled our moist strawberry layer cake with whipped cream and sliced strawberries, and frosted with a creamy strawberry cream cheese frosting.

We think that this will become your new favorite strawberry cake!

What Makes this Strawberry Cake Different?

We have a few other strawberry cakes in our Recipes Section that we love, including our Strawberry Sour Cream Cake, Scratch Strawberry Cake, Strawberry Pound Cake, and Strawberry Cake Mix Recipe.

What makes today's Homemade Strawberry Cake different, is the cream cheese in the cake batter! We refer to these as our velvet cake recipes.

We love the amazing texture that it gives our cake as well as the added richness that it adds while still maintaining a fluffy, soft crumb.

Buttermilk and sour cream are two staples that we've often turned to for our cake recipes because the added acidity softens the gluten strands which makes for a moist, tender cake.

We are now adding cream cheese to this list of favorite ingredients as well!

More Cakes with Cream Cheese in the Cake Batter!

Just in the past couple of months, we've begun to use cream cheese in several of our new cake recipes including: Almond Cream Cheese Cake, Lemon Velvet Cake, Chocolate Velvet Cake, and Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake, and we are officially in love!

How to Make Homemade Strawberry Cake

You can find the full, printable strawberry cake recipe in our recipe card further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour three 8 inch pans. We like to line the bottom of our pans with circles of parchment paper.

• Puree fresh strawberries or frozen strawberries in a blender or food processor to make 1 cup. (You will also use an additional ¼ cup more for the frosting if you'd like to do this now). I used frozen, whole strawberries which I thawed and pureed for the cake batter, and used fresh strawberries for the filling and frosting.

The great thing about a strawberry cake recipe that calls for frozen strawberries is that you don't have to wait for strawberry season to enjoy it!

• Combine Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.

• Combine Wet Ingredients: In another bowl, combine the oil, 1 cup strawberry puree, and strawberry extract. Set aside.

• Butter & Cream Cheese: In the large mixing bowl of your stand mixer, add the butter and cream cheese and mix at medium speed until smooth.

• Sugar: Gradually add the sugar and mix at medium speed for 2-3 minutes.

• Eggs: Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears. As an optional step, we like to add a drop or two of pink color gel to make a prettier shade of pink batter.

• Adding Dry & Wet Ingredients: With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the strawberry mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (We did 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet). Slightly increase the mixer speed just until combined.

• Fill the Pans: Divide the batter between the three prepared pans.

• Time to Bake! Bake at 325 degrees F for 28-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs attached. The baking time may vary and so keep an eye on the layers as they approach the 28 minute mark.

• Let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pans on a wire rack before turning out.

• This amazing strawberry cake recipe makes approximately 8 cups of batter and works for strawberry cupcakes as well (although there will be little to no dome).

Can Strawberry Cake Layers be Frozen?

Yes! Strawberry cake layers can be frozen- in fact, any cake layers can. We freeze cakes all the time and as long as they have been wrapped tightly, these moist cake layers will stay perfectly fresh.

After baking the strawberry cake layers, allow to cool for about 5-10 minutes in the pans on a wire rack before flipping out onto foil-lined cake boards.

Wrapping and Freezing

Allow to cool a bit more and then while still slightly warm, wrap in a layer or two of plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil. Into the freezer they go.

If you are baking far in advance, make sure to label the foil with the cake name and date.

How Long Can Cake Layers be Frozen?

When wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and foil, cake layers can be successfully frozen for three months.

That leaves plenty of time for working well in advance, or taking advantage of leftover frozen cake slices ;0) The cakes will still taste amazing.

Thawing Frozen Cake Layers

• Remove the wrapped cake layers from the freezer and allow to thaw on the kitchen countertop still wrapped. Condensation will form on the foil rather than the cake which is a good thing!

• After at least 30 minutes , once condensation has formed, you can remove the wrapping at any time.

• Some decorators even prefer to assemble their cakes when they are still partially frozen since they are less fragile.

Filling for our Homemade Strawberry Cake

There are many fillings that would be perfect for this delicious strawberry cake! Here are just a few:

• cream cheese frosting
• cooked strawberry filling
• strawberry whipped cream cheese filling
• strawberry buttercream

We decided to keep things light and simple with sliced fresh strawberries and whipped cream, as we do with our Strawberry Shortcake Cake and Easy Strawberry Champagne Cake Recipes.

We often use homemade whipped cream as a filling for our fruity cakes- it is a simple combination of whipped heavy cream, powdered sugar, and a bit of vanilla.

This recipe can be whipped up in minutes. We like chill the bowl and beaters/whisk attachment in the freezer for 10 minutes before preparing the recipe.

For the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I frosted the cake with a luscious Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting. This is such a flavorful recipe!

This strawberry frosting recipe is a cross between our usual cream cheese frosting and an American vanilla buttercream recipe as it uses one block of cream cheese frosting rather than two, and more butter.

This combination of recipes allowed me to add ¼ cup of strawberry puree for a boost of fresh strawberry flavor making it overly soft. I also love the tiny flecks of strawberry that the puree adds to the frosting!

You can still taste the light tanginess of the cream cheese, which perfectly complements the strawberry. The frosting is also flavored with a teaspoon of strawberry extract.

We added a touch of pink coloring gel (Americolor Deep Pink) to make a prettier shade of pink.

Cream Cheese Frostings are Softer

Cream cheese frostings like this one (as well as our chocolate cream cheese frosting, orange cream cheese frosting, and more) are a bit softer than other frostings.

The heat from your hands on the piping bag, or temperature of your kitchen can soften the buttercream, making it harder to work with.

Not to worry! If this happens, simply pop your bowl of frosting or piping bag in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to return it to it's proper consistency for decorating.

Assembling the Strawberry Cake

Place the first strawberry cake layer on the cake plate or pedestal. Using a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away, pipe a dam or strawberry cream cheese frosting about ¼-1/2 inch from the edge of the cake layer.

The purpose of piping a dam is to keep the soft whipped cream filling from escaping from the sides of the cake when the layers are stacked.

Fill the top of the layer with sliced strawberries, and follow with a layer of whipped cream (within the dam).

Top with the second cake layer, adding the dam, sliced strawberries, and whipped cream.

Top with the third cake layer and fill in any remaining gaps between the cake layers with more frosting. (I fill in the gaps with the same piping bag I used for the dam and then spread with an offset spatula. We want to seal in the filling!

Next, I crumb coated the entire cake with a thin layer of frosting and chilled it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes to firm things up. (You could also chill in the refrigerator for a bit longer).

Next, apply the second coat of frosting and smooth with a bench scraper or offset spatula. (I like to heat my metal bench scraper under very hot water before gliding over the final coat of frosting to make it extra smooth.)

Decorating the Homemade Strawberry Cake

Decorate the strawberry cake however you like! I kept things simple and added a few fresh strawberries to the top of the cake and piped around them using a Wilton 6B french star tip. I love the look!

You can get a similar effect with any large star tip.

More Cakes with Strawberries!

We love strawberry cakes! We think of them most often when we need a great spring or summer cake recipe or birthday cake recipe , but strawberry desserts are popular no matter what the season!

In addition to today's homemade strawberry cake recipe, we have many more strawberry cakes to share with you- from strawberry doctored cake mixes to homemade cakes, and other delicious fruity strawberry cake combinations.

Some of our favorites are Strawberry Bundt Cake, Strawberry Lemonade Cake, and Strawberry Cake from a Box.

Enjoy the Recipe!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't miss our full collection of delicious Cake Recipes, including cakes from scratch and cake mix recipes.

We also have a wonderful collection of velvet cake recipes- each one is so moist with a velvety soft texture.