My strawberry shortcake cake recipe makes the iconic berries-and-cream dessert worthy of sharing the shelf with other decadent fruit cake recipes!
Layers of fluffy sponge, creamy frosting, and perfectly ripe strawberries combine to break all your preconceived notions about strawberry cake recipes. No boring dyed-pink cake recipes here! We’re all about fragrance and flavor.
My other strawberry cakes — my Bisquick strawberry shortcake, strawberry layer cake, strawberry jello cake, and strawberry sheet cake — all use similar ingredients and flavors, so if you like those, you’ll LOVE this!
Let’s bake!
What I Love About This Recipe
- The texture of this cake is literally divine!
- Creamy, light frosting.
- Great for any party or holiday!
- Total Showstopper!!
How To Make Strawberry Shortcake Cake Recipe
- Combine your dry ingredients in one bowl, your egg, and vanilla in another, and then cream your butter and sugar in a third bowl.
- Slowly add your egg/vanilla mixture to the sugar mixture.
- Add your flour mixture alternatively with buttermilk until combined.
- Pour the batter into pans, bake, and let cool thoroughly before assembly!
- While the cakes are cooling, make your frosting and prepare your strawberries.
- Assemble your cake! Start with a layer of cake, then frosting, then strawberries, until your cake is built!
- Finish off with decoratively arranged strawberries for a show-stopping masterpiece.
***See the full instructions below.
Strawberry Cake Recipe Notes
Technically National Strawberry Shortcake Day isn’t until June 14, but I’m all about being prepared with luxurious strawberry cake recipes! This cake is light and rich, and gets an A+ for the beautiful visual contrast between the soft white cake, frosting, and the vibrant red strawberries.
Here are my best tips to get your own A+ cake!
Tips For Making The Perfect Strawberry Shortcake Cake
There are a few tricks you’ll need to be aware of:
- Preparation: This recipe has very specific instructions for the cake batter. Honestly, it’s not any more difficult than a standard cake; it’s just detailed, and I urge you to follow the directions as closely as possible. You want your batter to be fluffy, not dense and overwhipped.
- Cooling: After the cake is baked, it’s very fragile, particularly while it’s warm. Be careful when you transfer the layers from the baking pans to your cooling rack. Using parchment paper and letting the cake cool a few minutes in the pan will help stabilize it a bit.
- Melting: Cool! Your! Cake! If your cake layers at all warm when you start to assemble, the frosting will melt and your cake will collapse.
Easy Strawberry Shortcake Ingredients
- Cake Flour – To make sure you experience the awesome texture of this cake, you should definitely use cake flour. The lower protein content produces a very specific lightness and crumb. You can substitute all-purpose flour, noting the end result will be different but still delicious.
- Buttermilk – Part of the moisture in this batter comes from buttermilk, which provides a tangy offset to the sugar. When it reacts with the baking soda, the result is tiny little air bubbles that lighten the cake even more – it almost floats right off the plate!
- Just be sure to bake it right away so the bubbles get set by the cooking process before they have a chance to pop.
- Strawberries – Did you know strawberries are part of the rose family? That means if they smell good, they’re ripe! You definitely want them at their peak for this recipe.
Storing Tips:
- Can You Freeze This? This cake assembled does not do well frozen. The individual cakes, however, are great to freeze. Just make sure they’re well wrapped in plastic wrap to protect them from freezer burn.
- To thaw, let it come to temp in your fridge.
- Make Ahead Tips: You can make this whole cake up to four hours ahead of time and store it in the fridge! The strawberries, depending on their ripeness and juiciness, might weep a bit, but that just adds some moisture and a pink hue to the cake.
- How Long Can You Keep This In The Fridge? This cake does well in the fridge! The cream cheese in the frosting will solidify, giving your cake more structure and texture. I like to assemble the whole cake then let it sit in the fridge to marry all the ingredients for an hour or so before serving. It is safest if the cake is stored in a container like this.
- You can also store it in the fridge for 3-4 days!
More Amazing Cakes
Want more fruit cakes to ring in the summer season? Or want some Just Because? Here you go!
- Fresh Strawberry Cake
- Hummingbird Bundt Cake
- Banana Pudding Cake
- Berry Chantilly Cake
- Heaven On Earth Cake
- Pina Colada Cake
- Pineapple Sunshine Cake
- Strawberry Cream Cake
- Chocolate Poke Cake
- Lemon Buttermilk Cake
- Pig Pickin Cake
- Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake
- Strawberry Tres Leches Cake
Tried This Recipe?
Leave a review, I love hearing your feedback! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Strawberry Shortcake Cake
What do you get when you take two beloved desserts and mash them together? Strawberry Shortcake Cake! Layers of sponge, cream, & berries in perfect harmony.
Servings: 12 People
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 1/3 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 6 ounces unsalted butter
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 1 cup buttermilk
Whipped Cream Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
- 3 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Strawberries
- 5 cups fresh strawberries sliced
- 5-7 fresh strawberries -left whole
Instructions
Make the Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350ºF (177ºC). Set the oven shelf to the bottom third of the oven. Butter two 9-inch diameter cake pans. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment then butter the parchment.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together cake flour (2 1/3 cups), baking powder (1 1/2 teaspoons), baking soda (1/2 teaspoon), and salt (1/4 teaspoon); set aside.
- In a small mixing bowl, add egg (3) and vanilla (2 teaspoons) and whisk until combined.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter (6 ounces) until light and fluffy. Over the course of 3 minutes, beat in sugar (1 1/3 cups). Over the course of 2 minutes, beat in the egg mixture. Lower the mixer speed to low and add flour alternately with the buttermilk (1 cup), starting with and finishing with the flour mixture, scraping down the bowl.
- Pour the batter evenly into prepared pans. Bake in a preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops are beginning to become golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in pans on a baking rack for 15 minutes, then carefully remove cakes from the pan and cool completely.
Make the Whipped Cream Frosting:
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, add cream cheese (4 ounces), sugar (1 cup), and vanilla (2 teaspoons) and mix until combined. While the mixer is still whipping, slowly pour in the heavy cream (3 cups). Scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times and continue to whip until the cream holds a stiff peak.
Prepare Strawberries:
- Wash and dry (on paper towels) strawberries (5 cups). Set aside the best-looking whole berries for garnish the top of the cake. Cut the remain berries, just before ready to assemble, in thick slices.
Assembly:
- Carefully place the first layer of the completely cooled cake on the serving plate. Spread half the whipped cream frosting on top of strawberries. Arrange a layer of strawberry slices on the cake. Repeat with the second layer, adding whole strawberries with sliced strawberries.
- Place in fridge for one hour to allow frosting to firm up a bit for easier and neater slicing. Serve.
Fans Also Made:
Notes
- Preparation: This recipe has very specific instructions for the cake batter. Honestly, it’s not any more difficult than a standard cake; it’s just detailed, and I urge you to follow the directions as closely as possible. You want your batter to be fluffy, not dense and overwhipped.
- Cooling: After the cake is baked, it’s very fragile, particularly while it’s warm. Be careful when you transfer the layers from the baking pans to your cooling rack. Using parchment paper and letting the cake cool a few minutes in the pan will help stabilize it a bit.
- Melting: Cool! Your! Cake! If your cake layers at all warm when you start to assemble, the frosting will melt and your cake will collapse.
Nutrition
Serving: 1/12 of the recipe | Calories: 605kcal | Carbohydrates: 58g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 39g | Saturated Fat: 24g | Cholesterol: 166mg | Sodium: 187mg | Potassium: 278mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 37g | Vitamin A: 1455IU | Vitamin C: 39mg | Calcium: 115mg
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I’ve made this cake 3 going on 5 times, and it gets better every single time!! Thanks for sharing!
Glad to hear you like it, Wendy!!?
Delicious, substituted with almond milk, almond milk whipped cream and vegan butter. we finished the cake in one sitting… everyone had seconds
Yay, Kelly! I’m so happy you let us know it works for almond milk! Thank you for sharing it! Glad that you enjoyed it <3
Delicious
Thank you, Rachel 🙂