Strawberry Lemonade Cake
This moist Strawberry Lemonade Cake has a wonderful combination of flavors! Strawberry cake layers are lightly glazed with lemon, filled with fresh strawberries, and lemon cream cheese frosting. This is a dessert for spring and summer!
Servings: 15 servings
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 oz (226g)cream cheese, softened
- 1 ½ sticks (168g) unsalted butter, softened.
- 2 cups (400g) sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature (To save time, place eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
- 3 cups (342g) cake flour (See notes for substitution if needed.)
- 2 teaspoons (8g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (3g) baking soda
- ½ teaspoon 3g salt
- 1 cup (243g) strawberry puree (You can use frozen strawberries or fresh.)
- 2 teaspoons (8g) strawberry extract (We used McCormick brand.)
- ¼ cup (54g) vegetable oil (We used canola oil.)
- A touch of pink coloring gel (optional)
Lemon Simple Syrup (optional)
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup water
- Juice and zest from one lemon approximately 3 tablespoons juice
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
- 3 sticks (339g) unsalted butter, softened.
- 8 oz (226g) cream cheese, softened. (It is best to use full fat cream cheese.)
- ¼ cup (57g) lemon juice (Approximate amount of one lemon. Adjust to your liking)
- 1 ½ teaspoons (6g) Lemon Extract (Adjust amount to your liking.)
- zest of 1 lemon
- 7 ½ cups (863g) confectioners' sugar (sift then measure/weigh)
Additional Strawberries
- Fresh Strawberries- We used approximately 10 strawberries in between the layers as well as decoration on top. Adjust amount to your liking.
- Thinly sliced wedges of lemon for decoration
Instructions
- 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 or waxed paper
- Puree fresh or frozen strawberries in a blender or food processor to make 1 cup.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.
- In another bowl, combine the oil, 1 cup strawberry puree, and strawberry extract. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and cream cheese and mix at medium speed until smooth.
- Gradually add the sugar and mix at medium speed for 2-3 minutes.
- Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears. Add a touch of pink coloring gel if you'd like.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the strawberry mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (that is 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet). Mix on low speed until batter is combined and smooth.
- Divide the batter between the three prepared pans.
- 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 crumbs attached. Let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pans on a wire rack before turning out.
- This recipe makes approximately 8 cups of batter. Works for cupcakes also although there will be little to no dome, as with most scratch recipes.
- Lemon Simple Syrup
- In a saucepan over medium heat bring the water and sugar to a boil. Turn the heat to low and stir constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear.
- Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice and zest. Cool. If you want the mixture to be a thicker consistency, cook longer over low heat.
- Lemon Cream Cheese Buttercream
- Add the softened butter in the bowl of your mixer and mix until smooth
- Add pieces of cream cheese to the mixing bowl. The cream cheese should be soft enough
- that it combines easily into the butter mixture.
- Gradually add the powdered sugar. Add the lemon juice, lemon extract and zest. Do not over mix. The longer it is mixed the softer it becomes. If it becomes too soft, refrigerate 10 minutes or so and it will firm up.
- Makes about 5 cups of frosting.
- Assembling the Cake
- Place the first cake layer on the cake plate or pedestal. If using the lemon syrup, apply a thin layer over the top. (We do this with a silicone pastry brush).
- Spread the cake layer with lemon frosting. Top with thinly sliced strawberries. (We used about 3-4 sliced strawberries per layer). Top with the second cake layer and repeat (brush lightly with syrup, spread with lemon frosting, and apply sliced strawberries.) Add the top layer of cake, lightly brush with lemon syrup.
- Fill in any remaining gaps between the cake layers with frosting. Then, frost the cake with a very thin layer of frosting (crumb coat) and chill. We like to chill the cake for 10-15 minutes in the freezer (or longer in the refrigerator) to firm it up before applying the second coat of frosting.
- Decorate however you like! We combed the cake with a metal cake comb an added two rows of buttercream shells (pointing inward) using a 1M piping tip. We finished with a 1M piping tip.
- This cake should be refrigerated. Remove a few hours before serving to give the cake plenty of time to warm up for best flavor and texture.