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 Cindy, This recipe makes 7 1/2 cups batter. You can use 3 cups batter for the each 8 " round pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick come out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. You will have 1 1/2 cups batter leftover for cupcakes. Hope you will enjoy the recipe. Below is a batter amount chart that you will find helpful.
I am so excited to make this cake! I was wondering what temp and time I would use to make this into cupcakes? How many cupcakes will this recipe make? Also, what icing would you recommend for cupcakes? Thank you, I can’t wait!
Hi Samantha, For standard size cupcakes, bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. I am not sure how many cupcakes the recipe will make, but I think you could get 40. As for frosting options, at the beginning of this post just under the first picture of the cake, Melissa list frosting that go well with strawberry cake. There is a strawberry buttercream, if you do not want to refrigerate the cupcakes and several that have cream cheese in the frosting that would need to be refrigerated.
Hi I can't find strawberry extract anywhere :( can thisbbe substituted ? Or can I add more strawberry puree to replace ?
Could I use this recipe to make strawberry cupcakes?
Hi Mikayla, Yes, you can use the recipe for cupcakes. You will have fluffier cupcakes if you use the conventional method of mixing. You can find that method in the comments under the recipe. Look for the post I made on Sept.1, 2017. Bake standard size cupcake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. Hope you will enjoy the recipe.
Hi Lori, I am sorry you don't have strawberry extract. The grocery stores in my area have stopped carrying it and I had to order from Amazon. We do like the extra boost of flavor it gives the cake. My suggestion would be to add a layer of sliced strawberries over the frosting between the cake layers. Instead of the sliced strawberries, below is a cooked strawberry filling that you could make. It is quick to make and could be made in advance and refrigerated.
Strawberry Filling
2 cups chopped strawberry (fresh or frozen — chop in rather small pieces)
1/4 cup (100g) sugar
2 Tablespoons (18g)
1 Tablespoon (9g) water
Add all ingredients to a small saucepan. On medium/high heat allow mixture to come to a boil. Stir as the sugar begins to melt and the strawberries soften. When the mixture begins to boil, lower the heat and stir constantly until the mixture begins to thicken. You can press some of the strawberries against the side of the pan as they soften. Pour into a heat proof bowl to cool. It can be refrigerated in an air-tight bowl until ready to use. Use within 5 days. This makes enough filling for a 3 layer cake.
I’m sorry. My computer is acting up. 2 tablespoons of what?
Never mind. I found the answer. Cornstarch. :)
Hi Sophie, Yes, that would be fine.
Hi Sophie, Depending on how warm your kitchen is, you can have the cake under a cover on the countertop for a day or so. It will keep longer in the refrigerator. It should be fine for 4 days. Take it out a couple of hours before serving to allow it to come to room temperature.
I have made this cake several times and get rave reviews each time. I have someone requesting it gluten free. Is there a way to make it gluten free? I haven't found gluten free cake flour. Thanks.
Hi! What kind of vegetable oil do you use? I've used canola, soybean, safflower, grapeseed, and olive oils in cakes, but they all give cakes an unusual taste that even my kids notice it. Thank you!
Hi Susan, We like canola oil.