Strawberry Layer Cake Recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting

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This Strawberry Layer Cake is tender, fluffy, and full of actual strawberry taste due to roasting the berries and a beneficiant dose of their freeze-dried kind. It’s a fantastic make-ahead cake that feels particular with out being overly sophisticated. Serve it for birthdays, showers, or cozy spring weekends alongside my iced matcha latte.

Strawberry Layer Cake slices, cake on cake stand, and cups of coffee.

A superb strawberry cake ought to style like precise strawberries, and this one delivers. Roasting the berries first concentrates their taste, whereas freeze-dried strawberries give the frosting a shiny, punchy end. It’s the form of cake I’d placed on a bakery menu, proper subsequent to my creamsicle cake and lemon layer cake. The layers bake forward fantastically, making this a simple selection for spring and summer season gatherings if you don’t wish to be scrambling day-of.

Obtained leftover strawberries? My strawberry biscuits are calling your identify.

Whole strawberry layer cake on cake stand.

Substances You’ll Want for Strawberry Layer Cake

Recent strawberries – Roasting contemporary strawberries deepens their sweetness and removes extra moisture, giving the cake a stronger berry taste with out making the batter watery.
Unsalted butter – Butter offers the cake richness and helps create a tender, tender crumb.
Egg whites – Egg whites preserve the layers gentle in shade and texture whereas serving to the cake bake up fluffy and structured.
Cream cheese – Provides tang and balances the sweetness of the frosting. It additionally offers the frosting a easy, creamy texture.
Freeze-dried strawberries – These add concentrated strawberry taste to the frosting with out thinning it out the best way contemporary berries can.

For the remainder of the components, please discuss with the recipe index card under!

Stand-Up Mixer: This recipe is best to make with a stand-up mixer because it helps correctly cream the butter and sugar for a light-weight, fluffy cake. In case you don’t have one, an electrical hand mixer will work simply tremendous.

Kitchen Scale: I really like utilizing a kitchen scale for baking as a result of it offers probably the most correct measurements and constant outcomes each time.

Offset Spatula: Useful for spreading the cake batter evenly into the baking pans and smoothing frosting between layers and across the cake.

Silicone Spatula: A useful instrument for scraping each little bit of batter from the bowl and folding or smoothing frosting as wanted.

Bench Scraper: I choose a versatile bench scraper for frosting muffins. It makes it a lot simpler to easy the perimeters and create clear edges.

Revolving Cake Stand: In case you make muffins typically, that is price having. The rotating base makes frosting quicker, simpler, and far neater.

Learn how to Make Strawberry Layer Cake

Gently roast strawberries in baking dish.

Roast the strawberries. Toss sliced strawberries with sugar and salt, then roast till juicy and aromatic.

Roasted strawberry puree in food processor.

Mix till easy and measure out 1/2 cup puree.

Wet and dry Strawberry Layer Cake ingredients.

Combine the batter. Whisk collectively the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Whisk collectively the milk, egg whites, and strawberry puree, then alternate including moist and dry components to kind a easy batter.

Strawberry Layer Cake unbaked layers in cake pans.

Bake the muffins. Divide the batter among the many greased cake pans and bake at 350℉ for 22 minutes. Cool fully earlier than frosting.

Freeze dried strawberry powder in food processor.

Blitz the freeze-dried strawberries within the meals processor.

Mixing strawberry cream cheese frosting.

Make the frosting. Beat the cream cheese till easy, then add butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and strawberry powder till fluffy and spreadable.

Strawberry Layer Cake partially frosted.

Assemble and embellish. Stack the cake layers with frosting between every, apply a crumb coat, and chill within the fridge for 20 minutes.

Decorating Strawberry Layer Cake with strawberries made of frosting.

End with the ultimate layer of frosting and embellish as desired.

Decorated strawberry layer cake on cake stand.

Slice it up and serve.

Fast Ideas for the Finest Strawberry Layer Cake

Roast the strawberries totally. You need them tender and concentrated, not watery. This provides the cake stronger strawberry taste.

Line the cake pans. Parchment rounds assist the layers launch cleanly and preserve them intact.

Weigh the batter if potential. Evenly divided batter helps the layers bake on the similar fee.

Use freeze-dried strawberries, not contemporary, in frosting. Recent berries add an excessive amount of moisture and might loosen the frosting.

Chill earlier than adorning. A chilly cake is less complicated to frost neatly and helps piped decorations maintain their form.

Skip the piping should you like. Sprinkles or contemporary berries on high work fantastically too.

Make-Forward, Storage & Serving

Make Forward: Bake the cake layers as much as 2 days prematurely. Cool fully, wrap tightly, and retailer at room temperature. Frosting might be made 1 day forward and refrigerated.

Storage: Retailer the assembled cake coated within the fridge for as much as 4 days.

Serving: Let the cake sit at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes earlier than serving so the frosting softens and the cake texture is at its finest.

Freezing: Unfrosted cake layers might be wrapped tightly and frozen for as much as 2 months.

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Roasted Strawberry Puree:

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:

To Make the Roasted Strawberry Puree:

Preheat the oven to 350 levels F. In a small baking dish, mix the strawberries, sugar and salt. Switch to the oven to roast for quarter-hour. Take away it from the oven and switch it to a meals processor. Mix till fully easy. Measure out 1/2 cup and put aside. (Any further might be added to cocktails, milk for consuming, and so on.)

To Make the Cake Layers:

Preserve the oven at 350 levels F (because it was for roasting the strawberries). And grease and line three 8-inch spherical baking pans.
In a medium bowl, whisk collectively the flour, baking powder, and salt. Put aside.
Within the bowl of a stand-up mixer with the paddle attachment (alternatively, you are able to do this in a big bowl with an electrical mixer), add the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Beat till gentle and fluffy, about 2 to three minutes. In a measuring cup, pour within the milk, egg whites, and the reserved 1/2 cup strawberry puree and whisk till mixed.
Flip the mixer to low velocity and, alternating between the dry components and the liquid components (the strawberry/egg white combination), add the butter/sugar combination till the batter is comparatively easy.
Pour the batter into the ready baking pan and easy it out till it reaches the perimeters. Switch to the oven to bake for 22 to 25 minutes, till a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clear.
Permit the cake to chill within the pan for about 10 minutes after which invert onto a cooling rack and funky to room temperature. It’ll most likely take a great hour.

To Make the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:

Utilizing a meals processor OR a spice grinder, add the 1/2 cup freeze-dried strawberries. Pulse for about 1 minute till it resembles a powder. Measure out 2 tablespoons.
Within the bowl of a stand-up mixer with the paddle attachment (or a medium bowl utilizing an electrical hand mixer), add the cream cheese and beat it till easy. I like to do that or else the cream cheese frosting could have little clumps of cream cheese. Subsequent, add the butter and beat it till easy, about 15 seconds.
Add the powdered sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and heavy cream. Beat for a full 2 minutes to make sure fluffy, scrumptious frosting.
If you wish to make little strawberries, right here’s what you could do: add about 1/3 cup of frosting to at least one bowl. After which add a number of tablespoons to a second bowl. We’re going so as to add meals coloring to each of these frostings.
Then, add the reserved strawberry powder to the frosting and beat it one final time till mixed. Add pink meals coloring if you would like it to be extra pink. I added a small drop.
In case you don’t wish to make the strawberries, you’ll be able to clearly skip eradicating a few of the frosting and simply proceed with including the strawberry powder, and so on.

To Make the Strawberries for Ornament:

Add a drop or two of pink meals coloring to the 1/3 cup of frosting. That is going to be for our strawberries. Combine it collectively till easy. Switch it to a piping bag fitted with a #3 spherical piping tip.
Add a drop of inexperienced meals coloring to the two tablespoons of frosting. That is going to be our strawberry tops. Combine it collectively till easy. Switch it to a piping bag fitted with a #1 spherical piping tip.

To Enhance the Cake:

Place one cooled cake layer on a cake board. Add about ⅓ cup of the frosting to the highest of the primary layer and easy out into a skinny, even layer. Place the second cake layer on high. Repeat with the third layer. Add a skinny crumb coat of frosting to the cake and easy the highest and sides. Switch the cake to the fridge to sit back for about 20 minutes. Then add the ultimate layer of frosting to the cake.
In case you don’t wish to do the strawberries above, no biggie. High the cake with some sprinkles OR depart it as is.
So as to add the strawberries, pipe on hearts; they’ll find yourself wanting like strawberries as soon as we add the tops. Add as many as you want. Make them any measurement you want, too.
Pipe on two little dots on the high of the hearts to remodel them from hearts to strawberries.

Fast Ideas

Roast the strawberries totally. You need them tender and concentrated, not watery. This provides the cake stronger strawberry taste.

Line the cake pans. Parchment rounds assist the layers launch cleanly and preserve them intact.

Weigh the batter if potential. Evenly divided batter helps the layers bake on the similar fee.

Use freeze-dried strawberries, not contemporary, in frosting. Recent berries add an excessive amount of moisture and might loosen the frosting.

Chill earlier than adorning. A chilly cake is less complicated to frost neatly and helps piped decorations maintain their form.

Skip the piping should you like. Sprinkles or contemporary berries on high work fantastically too.

Make Forward, Storage, & Serving

Make Forward: Bake the cake layers as much as 2 days prematurely. Cool fully, wrap tightly, and retailer at room temperature. Frosting might be made 1 day forward and refrigerated.
Storage: Retailer the assembled cake coated within the fridge for as much as 4 days.
Serving: Let the cake sit at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes earlier than serving so the frosting softens and the cake texture is at its finest.
Freezing: Unfrosted cake layers might be wrapped tightly and frozen for as much as 2 months.