Strawberry Cake {A Scratch Recipe}
We have fallen in love with this flavorful scratch Strawberry Cake.
This strawberry layer cake has become one of our favorite recipes, with its moist and soft cake layers and big strawberry flavor.
There are so many frostings that would pair perfectly with this cake, but cream cheese frosting may be my favorite.
Table of Contents
Why we Love it
- Moist, tender cake layers
- We love cakes with fruit for their light and refreshing flavor (as with our pineapple cake, lemon cake recipe, raspberry cake, and so many more!)
- Wonderful strawberry flavor from strawberry puree and strawberry extract, as with our strawberry coconut cake and more.
- Plenty of batter for three 8 inch cake layers
- Works great with frozen strawberries, making it a perfect year-round cake!
- Makes a great birthday cake recipe, special occasion cake, and more.
Frostings for Strawberry Cake
This moist strawberry cake is bursting with wonderful strawberry flavor, and tastes amazing with these frostings and fillings (and many more)!
- Strawberry Filling
- Chocolate Buttercream (if making a chocolate covered strawberry cake!)
Fresh vs. Frozen Strawberries
You don't have to wait for strawberry season to enjoy this delicious strawberry cake. It calls for strawberry puree made from fresh or frozen strawberries.
We think you'll love the fresh strawberry flavor that more than a cup of strawberry puree lends to the cake.
Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing
This cake calls for the Reverse Creaming Method of mixing, for a moist and tender cake. The ingredients are added in a different order than the traditional creaming method, resulting in a slightly tighter crumb and velvety texture.
*If you would prefer to use the traditional creaming method for this fresh strawberry cake recipe, you can find it in the Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake recipe!
How to Make Strawberry Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (This recipe uses the reverse creaming method as is explained above.)
Grease and flour three 8 x 2 inch round cake pans - I like three layers because it gives us an extra layer of filling. *We also like to line our prepared pans with parchment circles.
- In a separate bowl, combine room temperature eggs, strawberry puree, vanilla, strawberry extract, pink food coloring (if desired). Blend together with a fork.
- In the mixing bowl for your stand mixer, hand whisk the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt) for 30 seconds to combine. With your mixer on low to medium speed, and using the paddle attachment, add the pieces of butter, a few pieces at a time, also add the oil at this time. Mix until the dry ingredients form moist crumbs that look like coarse sand.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. With the mixer on LOW speed, SLOWLY add ½ of the egg mixture/wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, increase the mixer to medium speed and beat for 1 ½ minutes, the batter will be thick and fluffy.
- Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating 20 seconds after each. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and pour the cake batter into prepared pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake layer comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. then turn out. This recipe makes about 7 ½ cups of batter.
Will this Strawberry Cake Recipe work for Cupcakes?
Yes, you can make strawberry cupcakes with this recipe, however they will have little to no dome. This true for many of our scratch cake recipes.
Decorating the Strawberry Cake
Decorate the Strawberry Cake however you like with your favorite strawberry frosting or a recipe that pairs well with strawberry flavor. We crumb coated our cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and then immediately piped the spiral patterns that you see in the photo using a star tip 21.
I love the piped-all-over look and it is also very forgiving! Simply start piping in the center and spiral outward, clockwise as many until you reach the size that you want. Repeat until the cake is finished ;0)
Doctored Cake Mix Version of Strawberry Cake
If you prefer a doctored boxed cake mix recipe, we have a great one for you: Strawberry Cake: Doctored Cake Mix Recipe.
This easy strawberry cake always gets rave reviews and uses real strawberries along with other flavorings for a delicious strawberry flavor.
More Strawberry Cakes
We've made several delicious strawberry cakes over the years! Here are just a few of our favorites. You can find our full collection of favorites here: Strawberry Cakes, Fillings, and Frostings!
Some of our favorites are our Homemade Strawberry Cake (which contains cream cheese in the cake batter for a velvety texture), Strawberry Bundt Cake, and Strawberry Pound Cake.
Our Strawberry Shortcake Cake (with pound cake layers and fresh strawberries) as well as our Strawberry Lemonade Cake are popular spring and summer cakes also!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Strawberry Cake from Scratch
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs room temperature ( can warm the eggs by putting in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
- 1 ½ cups (340 g) strawberry puree .I used frozen strawberries that were lightly sweetened, you could also use fresh. Puree the strawberries in food processor or blender
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons (8g) strawberry extract
- 2 to 3 drops AmeriColor Pink or your pink coloring of choice optional but makes for a prettier shade of pink
- 3 cups (342 g) cake flour
- 1 ¾ cups (350 g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon 14 g baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- ¼ cup (50g) vegetable oil
- 1 stick (113g) unsalted butter, slightly softened. (We cut butter into small pieces so it can be added slowly during mixing process. I cut mine into ½ to 1 inch slices onto waxed paper on the countertop, letting it soften only about 5 to 6 minutes.)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease and flour three 8 x 2 inch round pans
- In a separate bowl, combine eggs, strawberry puree, vanilla extract, strawberry extract, pink coloring (as desired). Blend together with a fork.
- In the bowl of your mixer, hand whisk the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt) for 30 seconds to combine. With your mixer on low to medium speed, add the pieces of butter, a few pieces at a time, also add the oil at this time. Mix until the dry ingredients form moist crumbs that look like coarse sand.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Method is important when using Reverse Creaming, so with the mixer on LOW speed, SLOWLY add ½ of the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, increase the mixer to medium speed and beat for 1 ½ minutes, the batter will be thick and fluffy.
- Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, beating 20 seconds after each. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and pour into prepared pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans 10 min. then turn out.
- Makes 7 ½ cups batter
Hi Deb, Thank you so much for posting your thoughts on the recipe. Also, thanks to your husband for his taste test and review. We are so happy that you like it!
I have never made a cake from scratch, so excuse me if this is a stupid question! (Perhaps i missed this step in the directions) Is the picture just for show or am I supposed to add something between the cake layers? And if so, please explain:))
Hi Jo Jo, There is frosting in between the cake layers as well as the outside of the cake. Melissa used the Classic Cream Cheese Buttercream recipe for this cake. In the beginning of her post on this cake Melissa list other frosting recipes that could be used. They are in bold type and you can click on the recipe to view. They recipes are also listed in the recipe section of mycakeschool.com. If the frosting becomes too soft while you are decorating, just refrigerate for 8 to to 10 minutes and it will firm up. Also, since you have never made a cake from scratch and this recipe uses the Reverse Creaming Method, it would be a good idea for you to watch a video of that method. Let us know if you have other questions.
Below is a link
https://www.mycakeschool.com/reverse-creaming-method-of-mixing-a-cake-video-tutorial/
Can I use regular flour in this recipe? No cake flour in my store
Hi Carolyn, You can make cake flour using this substitution. Using all purpose flour.....for each cup of flour you will remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK). This recipe has 3 cups flour so you will measure or weight out 3 cups all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons flour and replace with 3 Tablespoons cornstarch. Whisk to blend and proceed with the recipe. Second option.....if you do not have cornstarch, after measuring our 3 cups flour, just remove 6 tablespoons and proceed with the recipe.
I've been baking a LOT during these crazy days. I'm making this amazing looking cake today. One question - you don't specify in the recipe what attachment you use for the mixer. I'm assuming the paddle, but you mention whisking right before. I don't think I've ever done reverse creaming, so it's a bit of a mystery. Thanks!
Hi Michael, I do use the paddle attachment for mixing the cake batter. When blending the dry ingredients I used a hand held whisk, but maybe I should have written......with the mixer on low speed, blend the dry ingredients approximately 30 seconds to combine before you begin adding the butter. Either way would be fine. Hope you enjoy the cake. Below is a link to Melissa's video on the Reverse Creaming Method if you would like to watch it.
https://www.mycakeschool.com/reverse-creaming-method-of-mixing-a-cake-video-tutorial/
Thanks for the info BeBe – the video was exactly what I needed. I’m not sure how I missed that reverse creaming method after years of baking, but it was easy to do. The cake turned out perfectly – moist, perfect crumb, tender, full of flavor. I used fresh strawberries, but didn’t use strawberry extract (the cake has great strawberry flavor so I’m not sure it’s necessary). I also used two 9” inch cake pans. I thought that would increase baking time but it was prefect at 30 minutes at 340 convection. Last thing – thanks for putting weights in this recipe. I wish more recipes used weight instead of volume (like the British recipes do) it is so much more accurate. When I measured out my 3 cups of cake flour it was about 80 grams over what the recipe said! I thought about it and decided to go with the weight specified (342 grams) instead of the volume, and it turned out perfectly (don’t know why I have such heavy flour!!!) I highly recommend a kitchen scale which are quite cheap now (I paid less than ten dollars for mine), and you’ll find yourself using it all the time. Thanks again! Great cake…
Hi Michael, Thanks so much for posting your thoughts on this recipe. I am so happy all went well and you enjoyed the cake! I am not sure why your measured flour weighed 80 grams more than needed. Some possibilities are......when filling a measuring cup, you should spoon the flour into the cup, slightly over filling, then level off with the back of a knife. If flour is measured by scooping the flour out of a container then leveled off, the flour will be packed in and weigh more. Also, if the container of flour has been sitting for a long time it is good to stir and loosen it up before spooning into a cup.Since you have baked for years this probably does not apply to you, but the information could help others who might read this. You are so right about using a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients. It would be a great tool for every baker to have. Thanks so much for giving our recipe a try.
Do you thaw the strawberries before puréeing? Also could you use a 9 x13 x2 size pan?
Hi S Lee, The strawberries do not need to be fully thawed, just enough that your food processor can puree them. This recipe makes approximately 7 1/2 cups of batter and a 9x13 pan, 2 inches deep needs 7 cups so you will be fine using this recipe. Bake at 350 degrees and check at 35 minutes. When a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, it is done. Are you familiar with the Reverse Creaming Method that this recipe uses? If not, you might like to look at Melissa's video on this method of mixing. Link below.......hope you will enjoy the cake.
https://www.mycakeschool.com/reverse-creaming-method-of-mixing-a-cake-video-tutorial/
Is it possible to make this as two thicker layers in two 8" pans, assume increasing the cooking time? Or would I have to calculate two thirds of the recipe?
Also how many cupcakes would this recipe make?