Fresh Strawberry Cake

This is the best fresh strawberry cake made with real strawberries. The secret is adding a fresh strawberry reduction to your cake batter and mixing the rest into your buttercream frosting for a fresh strawberry cake recipe that tastes like real strawberries!

 

Many strawberry cakes are made with imitation flavors or Jell-O, but not this cake! This uses real fresh or frozen strawberries and lemon to bring out the strawberry flavor. This cake takes a bit more time to prepare because we have to make the strawberry reduction first then make the strawberry cake but I promise its worth the effort!

Why This Is The BEST Strawberry Cake Recipe

This is definitely one of my all-time favorite cake recipes. I have never worked so long and hard on one recipe. SO many failed attempts and I almost gave up. I tried adding chopped-up strawberries to my vanilla cake recipe, and the cake turned out very wet, dense, brown, and most of the strawberry flavor was gone. 

Next, I tried that recipe where you add Jell-O. Let me tell you, that was the weirdest-tasting cake I have ever tried! I don't know how anyone can call that flavor strawberry but if you like it, more power to ya haha!

I also tried grinding up freeze-dried strawberries and adding them to my dry ingredients. That cake turned out a little better, but I still wanted to figure out a way to use fresh strawberries. I finally nailed this recipe using a strawberry reduction (boiling pureed strawberries until they are thicker and have less liquid) and a high-quality strawberry emulsion!

• Fresh strawberry flavor made from REAL strawberries
• No Strawberry Jell-O mix
• No boxed cake mix
• Moist crumb 

Fresh Strawberry Ingredients

Strawberry Emulsion is like strawberry extract but very very concentrated. If you can get it ahead of time, it really adds the best strawberry flavor but if you don't have time to order it, using regular strawberry extract is better than nothing! I got my strawberry emulsion from Michaels in the cake decorating aisle. 

I'm using frozen strawberries for this recipe because frozen fruit is ALWAYS in season and so much easier to use. If it's strawberry season near you, by all means, use fresh!

Strawberry Reduction Instructions

1. Place your thawed strawberries into a blender and pulse a few times until they are liquid. 

2. Pour the blended strawberries, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. 

3. Once bubbling, reduce heat to medium-low and slowly reduce until berries begin to break up and the mixture has reduced and looks like a thick paste.

This can take a while. Mine takes between 40-60 minutes! I know this sounds like a long time but low and slow is the best for keeping all the flavor. Just give it a stir every now and then.

Step 4 – Occasionally stir the mixture to prevent burning. You should end up with about 1 cup of thick strawberry reduction that looks like tomato sauce. Transfer to another container and let it cool before use.

Step 5 – You will use some of the reduction for the cake batter, some for the frosting, and the rest for filling between the cake layers for extra flavor.

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Bring your butter, egg whites, milk, and strawberry reduction to room temperature and prepare the rest of your ingredients. For the best success, use a food scale to weigh your ingredients. Converting this recipe to cups could lead to failure. Read my blog post on how to use a scale for more information.
   
2. Grease two, 8" cake pans with cake goop or your preferred pan release and preheat the oven to 350ºF/176ºC.
   
3. In a separate medium bowl, combine the milk, oil, strawberry reduction, strawberry emulsion (or extract), vanilla extract, lemon extract, lemon zest, lemon juice, and pink food coloring. Whisk it together and set it aside.
   Pro-tip – I use Americolor electric pink food coloring to get my beautiful pink color. It may seem like cheating, but if you don't add it, the color from the strawberries will bake out and your cake will turn out gray. 
   
4. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set it aside.
5. Add room temperature butter to the stand mixer with the paddle attachment and beat at medium speed until smooth and shiny, about 30 seconds.
   I'm using my Bosch Universal Plus mixer for this, but you can use any KitchenAid stand mixer or a hand mixer. If you use a hand mixer, you might have to mix for longer. 
   
6. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar, and beat until the mixture is fluffy and almost white, about 3-5 minutes.
   
7. Add the egg whites one at a time, beating 15 seconds between. Your mixture should look cohesive at this point. If it looks curdled and broken, your butter or egg whites are too cold.
   
   You must use egg WHITES for this recipe, the yellow from the egg could turn the inside of your cake peach. 
   
8. Mix on low speed and add about a third of the dry ingredients to the batter, followed immediately by about a third of the milk mixture, mix until ingredients are almost incorporated into the batter.
9. Repeat the process 2 more times. When the batter appears blended, stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. If it looks like ice cream, you did it right!
   
10. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. I use a spoon to make a divot in the center so that the cakes bake up flatter.
11. Bake cakes at 350ºF/176ºC until they feel firm in the center and a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs on it, about 30-35 minutes.
    
12. Place pans on top of a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Then flip your cakes onto the racks and cool completely.
13. Once cool, wrap each layer in plastic wrap and refrigerate before assembling your cake. Refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours or freeze for up to 1 week.
    
14. If you want even more strawberry flavor (duh, of course I do Liz) spread some of your extra strawberry reduction directly on each layer before filling with buttercream and stacking. Delicious!

If you need more information on how to frost and fill a cake, check out my how to make your first cake tutorial

Strawberry Buttercream Step-By-Step

1. Place the pasteurized egg whites and powdered sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the whisk attachment and combine ingredients on low, then whip on high for 5 minutes.
   
   You CANNOT use fresh egg whites for this buttercream. Egg whites from a box are pasteurized (like your milk) so they are safe to eat without cooking. 
   
2. Add in your butter in chunks and whip on high for 8-10 minutes until it's very white, light and shiny. It may look curdled and yellow at first, but this is normal. Keep whipping.
   
3. Add in the strawberry reduction, salt, and vanilla extract, and continue whipping until incorporated.
   
   Pro-tip – If your buttercream looks curdled, it's too cold. Take out ½ cup of buttercream and melt it in the microwave until it's just barely melted. About 10-15 seconds. Pour it back into your whisking buttercream and it will become creamy. 
   
4. Optional: Switch to a paddle attachment and mix on low for 15-20 minutes to make the buttercream very smooth and remove air bubbles. This isn't required but if you want really creamy frosting, you don't want to skip it.
   
5. Refrigerate the leftover buttercream for up to a week. If you are not going to use buttercream for more than a week you can freeze it for 6 months or more.

FAQ

More Strawberry Recipes

Doctored Strawberry Cake Mix

Strawberry Macarons

Traditional Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Cinnamon Rolls

Need more cake recipes? I have so many that are personally tested by me and tried and true for any level of baker.

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