This Homemade Strawberry Cake is a moist fluffy cake with a delicious homemade strawberry frosting. An easy cake recipe is perfect for a simple dessert or special occasion like Valentine’s Day.
Homemade Strawberry Cake Recipe
Layered cakes may seem intimidating at first to make from scratch. Trust me, it will surprise you at how simple they are to make. A good homemade cake is so much better than anything you could buy from the store. This strawberry cake recipe is one of them. It’s delicious! Be sure to try our Layered Blue Velvet Cake as well!
Ingredients You Will Need:
- Strawberry puree – store bought or homemade which we list the recipe below.
- Flavoring – you need vanilla and strawberry extract.
- Flour – make sure to use cake flour and not all-purpose.
- Eggs – you’ll need 4 eggs.
- Sugar – you’ll use granulated sugar in this recipe.
- Baking powder – this helps the cake to rise with a fluffy texture.
- Strawberry Frosting – you will need unsalted butter, diced strawberries, heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla.
- Strawberries – You will need fresh strawberries for decorating and for making the puree.
How to Make Homemade Strawberry Cake
- Preheat oven and prepare the pans with baking spray.
- Whisk together the wet ingredients.
- Add in the dry ingredients.
- Beat in the butter and canola oil.
- Spread the mixture evenly in the cake pans.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
How To Make Strawberry Frosting
- Add the ingredients into a bowl and mix until creamy.
- Spread frosting in between layers and outside of cake.
Strawberry Puree:
Although you can purchase pre-made strawberry puree, it’s incredibly simple to make it at home with only a few ingredients.
Steps:
- Add the ingredients into a saucepan and simmer until thickened.
- Once cooked, transfer to a container and cool.
Can This Recipe Be Used For Strawberry Cupcakes Instead?
Cupcakes are the perfect portion size and I love making them. This cake recipe is very versatile. You can easily make strawberry cupcakes instead. After making the strawberry batter, fill cupcake tins with cupcake liners and then fill the liners ⅔ of the way full. When the cupcakes are baked, put frosting in a piping bag to add the icing to the top of each cupcake.
Tips for Frosting The Best Homemade Strawberry Cake
Make sure to cut the domes off each cake before frosting. This lets the cake sit flat and will keep it from toppling over. Make sure to add about a cup of frosting to each layer. Using an angled spatula, make the frosting even and smooth. Some of the frosting will drip over the edges. This is ok. Smooth that along the sides.
Other Strawberry Cake Recipes
- Chocolate Strawberry Cake
- Strawberry Crunch Cake
- Strawberry Shortcake Cheesecake Cake
- Strawberry Pound Cake
Homemade Strawberry Cake
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cup strawberry puree
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 tsp strawberry extract
- 2 to 3 drops Pink gel food coloring
- 3 cup cake flour
- 1 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp plus 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
Strawberry Puree ingredients
- 1 pound strawberries fresh or frozen
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 pinch salt
Strawberry Frosting ingredients
- 2 cup unsalted butter softened
- 6 cup powdered sugar
- 4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup finely diced strawberries
- 5-7 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
- Strawberries for topping optional
Instructions
Strawberry Puree directions
- Place strawberries, sugar, lemon juice and salt into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
- Once bubbling, reduce heat to low and let slowly reduce until berries begin to break up and liquid is almost gone.
- Occasionally stir the mixture to prevent burning.
- Transfer to another container and let cool before use. Makes about 1 1/2 to 2 cups.
Strawberry Cake directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray the cake pans with baking spray, set aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine eggs, strawberry puree, vanilla, strawberry extract, pink food coloring, whisk until combined.
- Using a standing mixer, whisk together the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt until combined.
- Slowly beat in the butter and canola oil until combined.
- Once the mixture looks like coarse sand, gradually beat in the egg mixture until combined.
- The batter will be very thick and fluffy but so good!
- Evenly divide the cake batter.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool completely.
Frosting directions:
- Using a standing mixer, cream together the butter, vanilla, powdered sugar, diced strawberries and heavy whipping cream until combined and creamy.
- Scoop 1 cup of frosting into the large piping bag.
Directions to prepare the cake:
- Once cake rounds have cooled, remove from cake pans and place onto a cutting board.
- Using the cake leveler, remove the domes of the cakes and place one cake round onto the cake board.
- Scoop 1 cup of the frosting onto the middle of the cake.
- Using the angled spatula, smooth the frosting out.
- Place the second cake layer onto the first layer.
- Repeat steps with the frosting and remaining cake layer.
- Once you have built your cake, scoop the remaining frosting onto the top of the cake and use the angled spatula to smooth it out.
- Frost the entire cake until smooth.
- Pipe dollops of frosting on top.
- Place strawberries in the middle of the cake.
- Enjoy!
Last Step:
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Equipment
- 1 large piping bag fitted with star tip
- 3 9 inch round cake pans
- Cake leveler
- 1 12 inch cake board
- Angled icing spatula
Nutrition
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11 comments on “Homemade Strawberry Cake”
Hello Jill! This looks like a great recipe with fantastic ingredients for a tasty, moist yet sturdy cake. I see this is for 3 9″ pans, do you know how much batter this recipe yields? I’d like to make it as a 9×13 (and cut to shape as a number) but that seems to be a lot of batter considering a box of cake mix calls for 2 8″, 2 9″ or 9×13″ pans as the same amount of batter for 3 different sizes.
It would be nice to get tall 2.5″+ rise out of a 9×13, but I don’t want to overfill the pan and know I could use extra batter for cupcakes. I also realize baking time will need to be longer, but any other advice is much appreciated!
Hi Cakebaker. I can’t remember the exact amount this recipe yields, but I know you will get your desired result for a tall 9×13 and then have some leftover for some cupcakes. The 9″ round cakes weren’t overly thick so I don’t think you’ll have too much batter left over. Let me know how it turns out. Thanks!
Unfortunately this didn’t work out well for me. The cake didn’t raise very high and was quite coarse and dense. Not sure what went wrong. I didn’t make any substitutions and all ingredients were at room temperature and fresh. The purée may have been reduced too much as it was not clear to me what thickness it was supposed to be. Can’t tell from the video shot from above; better to have a view from the side to see it being poured in. Was it supposed to be more like a tomato sauce or chunky like a salsa? It barely measured to a cup and my consistency was like a salsa with some bits of strawberries since I thought most of the liquid was to be reduced. The batter was quite thick and fluffy. I used my offset spatula to spread it evenly or so I thought. It was lopsided and lowest side was only 1” high. The flavor was good though and tasted like strawberries.
I’m afraid my store won’t have strawberry extract, is there anything I can use as a substitute or can I just not add it? Thank you!
Hi Natiela. You can omit the extract and still have it turn out fine. It definitely adds a good amount of strawberry flavor but it will still have a good strawberry flavor without it.
Do you have a Hobby Lobby near you? I get a strawberry emulsion from there and it’s really good!
Hello!
First of all, I used your strawberry cake recipe I few months ago and it was a HUGE hit! I did chocolate frosting for a chocolate covered strawberry flavor and people loved it!
I’m making strawberry cake for something coming up, but need to do more of a sheet cake with the number of people who will be attending. Do you think this recipe as is would work well for a 9×13 sheet cake? I know bake time may be different, but I’m thinking actual ingredients.
Hi Cecily. So glad to hear it was a hit! Yes, this recipe will do fine in a 9×13 but you will have more batter than you need. Probably enough for the 9×13 and an 8 or 9″ round as well. Also as you stated you may want to keep an eye on the baking time. Let me know how it turns out.
How long would I need to bake for cupcakes?
Hey Kelsie, between 15 and 25 minutes.
My son is a nut for anything strawberry – so I posted this recipe on Face Book for him.