A delicious, made-from-scratch, best-ever Strawberries and Cream Cake with a thick cream cheese frosting and garnished with sugared strawberries. The perfect cake for Mother’s Day!
Strawberries and Cream Cake
Right in time for Mother’s Day, I’ve got you covered for dessert! 🙂 This Strawberries and Cream Cake is relatively simple to make (no worrying about different pans and layering cakes with frosting in between), moist and flavorful, packed with strawberries, and it’s beautiful! I mean, who could ask for more?! And after your mom absolutely flips over this cake, then you’ll want to use this recipe for all kinds of occasions – a baby girl shower, a pink-themed party, Easter Sunday, a gorgeous spring/summer cake…there are so many times when you’ll need a delicious-from-scratch pink strawberry cake!
How Do You Make a Strawberries and Cream Cake with Real Strawberries?
The base of this cake has real strawberries in it! It also has an amazing topping of sugared strawberries–making this cake quite the delicious strawberry treat!
- Special ingredients: To make this cake, you’ll start by beating the butter until smooth and then adding in the sugar. You’ll add some lightly beaten eggs to this mixture and then some lemon juice. Why add lemon juice to this cake? A bit of lemon is as good as a dash of salt in bringing out the flavors. It really intensifies the delicious strawberry flavor, all while keeping things tasting fresh and light. The acidity of the lemon is also important for the final texture of the cake. And then you’ll add in the buttermilk. You can definitely make your own buttermilk (Remove one tablespoon from one cup of milk and replace that tablespoon with vinegar or lemon juice), but I do think this cake is best with a good store-bought buttermilk.
- Keep it light: To keep this cake from being over-mixed (and thus resulting in a denser cake) you’ll combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. You’ll sift together the flour and cornstarch a few times which is going to give you a bit of a “DIY cake flour.” You’ll get a finer crumb and a moister cake without it being too dense. Then you’ll mix in the dry Jell-O®, baking soda, and salt. Once this mixture is combined, you’ll add it to the wet ingredients and beat the two until JUST combined. Again, you don’t want to over-mix the cake batter here.
- Strawberries: Finally, you’ll fold in those *real* finely chopped strawberries!
- Frosting: While the cake bakes, you can make the delicious cream cheese frosting and sugared strawberries that will finish off this cake beautifully.
Quick Tip
MEASURING FLOUR: The most important measurement in this recipe is the flour. If you press a measuring cup into a bag of flour, you will pack in way too much flour, which will yield cakey and less-flavorful results. Spoon the flour into a measuring cup and level the top with the back of a table knife. Scooping and packing the flour is not the way to go!
How Do You Frost a Strawberries and Cream Cake?
This scrumptious treat has a delicious strawberry cake base and then a perfect cream cheese frosting to top it all off, making it a “strawberry-and-cream” flavored dessert. I’ve talked a lot about making the cake, so let’s quickly cover that cream cheese frosting. The most important thing for the cream cheese frosting is to make sure the cream cheese and the butter are both at room temperature. This will give you the perfect smooth and creamy base for the frosting. You don’t want the cream cheese or butter melted, microwaved, or softened, which makes the frosting greasy; yet you don’t want it chilled, which is hard to mix smoothly. They should both be at the same room temperature for best results.
The one “secret” ingredient to my cream cheese frosting that I think makes it the best is vanilla bean paste
. The paste has a more intense vanilla flavor and adds gorgeous flecks of beans to the frosting. I love what the paste does for this frosting, but pure vanilla extract also is delicious in its place.
More Strawberry Desserts:
- Mini Vanilla Cheesecakes with Strawberry Sauce
- Frozen Strawberry Ice Cream Pie
- Strawberry Pretzel Salad
- Strawberry Scones
- Strawberry Milkshake
Strawberries and Cream Cake
Ingredients
Strawberry Cake
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 cups white granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 cups + 3 tablespoons white flour
- 5 tablespoons cornstarch
- 3 tablespoons strawberry jell-o mix, dry (not prepared)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup buttermilk (or milk mixed with lemon juice--check notes)
- Optional: 3-4 drops red food coloring
- ⅔ cup finely diced fresh strawberries
Frosting
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 package (8 oz.) full-fat cream cheese at room temperature, don't use low fat
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (OR 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste)
- 3 to 4 cups powdered sugar (depending on desired consistency; I usually use 3 cups)
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
Topping
- 1 ½ cups sliced strawberries
- 1 ½ tablespoons white granulated sugar
Instructions
Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch pan and set aside.
- Beat the room-temperature butter with a hand mixer until light and creamy. Slowly add in the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- In another bowl, lightly beat the eggs; add to the butter mixture and mix. Add in the freshly squeezed lemon juice. Beat in the buttermilk (See Note 1.). If desired, add in the red food coloring and mix that in.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and cornstarch and then add in the Jell-O mix, baking soda, and salt. It is important to use separate bowls so the cake isn't over-beaten-- which will result in a dense cake.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and beat at low speed until just combined.
- Remove the stems from the strawberries and chop finely. Add the finely chopped strawberries to the cake batter.
- Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center.
- Cool the cake for at least one hour and then refrigerate for another hour.
Frosting:
- Beat the softened butter and room temperature cream cheese until completely creamy. Beat in the vanilla and salt. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar until smooth and your desired consistency.
- Spread the frosting evenly over the cake.
Sugared Strawberry topping (optional)
- Stir together the sliced strawberries and sugar in a medium bowl. Let them stand at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes to develop the syrup. Add them to the cake ONLY when serving and not beforehand.
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Could cake flour be used instead of all purpose flour?
Yes and then I’d leave out the cornstarch 🙂
Should I use 3 cups of cake flour since I’m omitting the cornstarch ?
It should still be closer to 2 cups + 3 tablespoons 🙂
I made this for a coworker’s birthday. I wanted to change the layers, and this recipe makes three perfect 6”-round layers! I frosted mine with homemade white chocolate-vanilla ermine buttercream. And let me tell you, this was so unbelievably delicious. I discovered halfway through that I was out of lemon juice, but I threw in a tablespoon or so of crushed freeze-dried raspberries, and that really brought out the strawberry flavor too. I had tried a different recipe the night before, and the failure was so humiliating that I almost didn’t want to try again. Then I found this recipe, and I’m so glad I did. I think it’s one of the best cakes I’ve ever tasted, and I’m not that big a fan of strawberry. Absolutely wonderful, thank you so much!
Ruby this makes me so happy to hear! Hope you and your coworker loved it! 🙂
That looks amazing! There is nothing better than strawberries and cake. I love how the cake is very pink. It make it look that much tastier!
Instead of buttermilk or regular milk combined with lemon juice do you think I could used condensed milk?
I wouldn’t recommend that; sorry!
This cake was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! And a lot of fun to make. Thank you for the great recipe!!
So happy to hear that!! Thank you for the comment Dominique! 🙂
Hi, can anyone tell me please what is jello, I am in the uk not sure if we have it here, what could I use instead , thankyou xx
Jello is flavored gelatin, hope that helps.
May be called strawberry jelly crystals or powder? Try Tesco shops.
I wanted to know could I add strawberry extract to add a little more flavor to the cake.
Yep absolutely! 🙂
I’m planning on making this cake for New Years Eve, but just wanted to check, on the frosting did you mean 1 8oz package of cream cheese? Thx
Yes, sorry Carol! I just switched to a new kind of recipe box and it changed the formatting on some of the recipes; it was supposed to read 1 package (8 ounces). I’ve updated it now. Thank you!
I just made this cake for my sons birthday. His favorite is strawberry! ?It tastes great, but sank in the middle.? What did I do wrong? Thanks!
So happy to hear that! 🙂 I’m glad the taste was good! As far as the sinking; are you at a higher altitude? Are your baking agents fresh? And did you for sure measure all the ingredients correctly (particularly the flour)?
This cake is decadent, rich, memorable, tasty (very), yummy, sweet and so many more descriptive adjectives!
Made this for mothers day this year then again for the 4th of July and one word comes to mind, scrumptious! Thank you so much Chelsea for sharing! Take care ?
Hi Mariama! So thrilled this cake was such a huge hit! 🙂 I can’t thank you enough for your kind comments!