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 cream cake, Â and strawberry sheet cake — all use similar ingredients and flavors, so if you like those, you’ll LOVE this!
Let’s bake!
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What I Love About This Recipe
- Perfectly fluffy, moist sponge
- Creamy, light frosting
- Great for any party or holiday!
How To Make Strawberry Shortcake Cake Recipe
You’ll start by preheating your oven and preparing your cake pans — no sticking batter here!
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.
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.
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:Â 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 Ingredient Notes
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 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. Â It safest if the cake is stored in a container like this.
You can also store it in the fridge for 3-4 days!
Strawberry Shortcake Cake
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 350 degrees. Set the oven shelf to the bottom third of the oven. Butter two 9-inch diameter cake pans. Line the bottom of pans with parchment then butter the parchment.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
- In a small mixing bowl, add egg and vanilla and whisk until combined.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter until light and fluffy. Over the course of 3 minutes, beat in sugar. Over the course of 2 minutes, beat in the egg mixture. Lower mixer speed to low add flour alternately with the buttermilk, starting with and finishing with the flour mixture, scraping down the bowl.
- Pour the batter evenly into prepared pans. Bake in a preheated oven, 25-30 minutes, or until 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 pan and cool completely.
Make the Whipped Cream Frosting:
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, add cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and mix until combined. While the mixer is still whipping, slowly pour in the heavy cream. 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. Set aside 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 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:
More Fruit Cake Recipes
Want more fruit cakes to ring in the summer season? Or want some Just Because? Here you go!
- Hummingbird bundt cake- All the flavors of the tropics in a buttery bundt cake
- Strawberry poke cake -My version of this cake adds strawberry pie filling to make it extra special!
- Pina Colada Cake – Your favorite cocktail in cake form
- Pineapple Sunshine Cake – The perfect thing to welcome summer!
- No Bake Summer Berry Icebox Cake – If you’ve got a freezer, you can make a cake!
Conclusion
Whether you love strawberry shortcake or this is your first time making a version of that iconic dessert, I guarantee you’ll love this strawberry shortcake cake recipe! What even did you make this cake for? Let me know in the comments!
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 🙂