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Strawberry Shortcake Cake is an easy yellow cake recipe filled with strawberry icing and topped with a stable whipped cream frosting and tons of fresh berries. It’s the PERFECT cake for strawberry season when you have so many fresh berries!
Why you’ll LOVE this cake
Strawberry shortcake is one of my favorite memories from childhood. Every summer for my dad’s birthday, a family gathering or just because, we’d get a sheet cake from the store. It would be a soft white cake filled with berries and fresh whipped cream.
Every year when June rolls around and strawberries are abundant, I start thinking about that childhood cake, which is probably why I’ve posted lots of strawberry shortcake recipes including no bake shortcake and strawberry shortcake cake roll.
This recipe combines three of my favorite things: strawberry shortcake, whipped cream frosting, and vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. It turns those three simple flavors into an explosion of (easy to make) cake flavor. This cake is pretty and easy enough, even for someone who isn’t a cake expert.
Ingredients for Strawberry Shortcake Cake
- Yellow Cake: use my homemade recipe or start with a box mix, your choice. Bake the cake as two 9-inch or 8-inch rounds. The cake recipe has all the normal ingredients: unsalted butter, flour, baking powder, large eggs, vanilla extract, buttermilk, and sugar.
- Frosting: To make it even easier you can use cans of icing, or you can make my vanilla buttercream recipe.
- Strawberries: Use fresh strawberries. I chop them fine and stir them into the frosting for the filling, along with pink food coloring. You could also swap strawberry jam in the filling.
- Cream Cheese, Heavy Whipping Cream, Powdered Sugar: This is what you’ll need to make that stable whipped cream frosting. The cream cheese MUST be room temperature.
How to make Strawberry Shortcake Cake
- Make and cool your cake: Bake your cake in 8-inch cake pans or 9-inch rounds and then let them cool.
- Prepare filling: Stir together frosting with chopped fresh berries and pink food coloring.
- Fill cake: Place one layer on your cake plate then top with filling. Add the second cake layer.
- Crumb Coat: Add a light layer of frosting all over the outside to pick up the crumbs. Chill the cake in the fridge to set.
- Make Whipped Cream Frosting: Adding cream cheese to whipped cream helps to stabilize it without gelatin or chemicals. You beat the cream cheese with sugar, then beat it all together with heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form. The frosting pipes great and lasts for a few days in the refrigerator without weeping.
- Frost Cake: Then, simply top the cake with more strawberries and serve. I can guarantee your guests will love this easy cake!
Tip From Dorothy
Expert Tips
- Be sure that your cake is completely cool before you frost.
- Make sure not to skip the crumb coat step. Frosting with that light amount of frosting and chilling it helps the cake not be wobbly.
- Want to make a naked cake? Just frost the top and skip frosting the sides.
- Make sure your berries are dried really well after washing them before adding to the frosting.
- You can make this with any kind of berries too, or a mixture.
- When baking your cake, line the bottom with parchment paper rounds for easy removal.
FAQ
Cake is light and fluffy and served with frosting, while shortcake is more of a biscuit type recipe.
This cake should be refrigerated because of the whipped cream frosting. It’s fine sitting out for a few hours.
You can make the cake the night before but I’d assemble this the day of eating.
Chances are you needed to beat it more. Beat it until stiff peaks form.
Strawberry Shortcake Cake Recipe
Recipe Video
Ingredients
- 1 recipe yellow cake (from my recipe or use a box mix)
- 1 pound strawberries
- 1 4 pound tub Wilton decorator icing (medium consistency)* , or 3 cans icing or my homemade buttercream (see note for link)
- Red food coloring optional
- 8 ounces (225g) cream cheese
- 1 cup (113g) powdered sugar
- 1 ½ cups (356ml) cold heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Bake cakes in 8-inch or 9-inch round pans as directed on box or in recipe. Let cool.
- Set aside 6-8 strawberries for garnish. Wash, hull, and dice small enough to make 1 cup diced (about 6-8 berries, depending on size).
- Place 2 cups of the decorator icing in a medium sized bowl. Stir in the diced berries. Add one drop of red food coloring, if desired.
- Place one cake layer on a cake plate. Frost with the strawberry icing. Top with second cake layer. Chill 1 hour.
- Using more of the decorator icing, frost the outside and top of the cake with a thin layer. I chose to leave the cake naked on the outside, but you can do a thicker layer of frosting if desired. Chill to set the crumb layer
- Make the whipped cream topping: beat cream cheese and sugar with a hand or a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, then run the mixer while adding the heavy whipping cream. Beat until stiff peaks form.
- Decorate/frost the top and sides of the cake with the whipped cream frosting. I used a Wilton 1M tip to pipe swirls over the top of the cake. Top with berries.
- Store in refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Recipe Notes
- Be sure that your cake is completely cool before you frost.
- Make sure not to skip the crumb coat step. Frosting with that light amount of frosting and chilling it helps the cake not be wobbly.
- Want to make a naked cake? Just frost the top and skip frosting the sides.
- Make sure your berries are dried really well after washing them before adding to the frosting.
- You can make this with any kind of berries too, or a mixture.
- If you want homemade frosting use my vanilla buttercream recipe.
what can I substitute for the store bought icing, I just can’t make myself use that!!
Just make your own icing with butter, cream, and icing sugar. There’s a million receipes out there
Just followed the link for whipped cream cheese filling, was disappointed that this is not a recipe for a cream cheese filling, why the misrepresentation? It is a sugar icing filling.
It is a whipped cream cheese frosting on top layer of cake.
This cake looks wonderful, but I will be making my own buttercream frosting without Lard. Thank you.
I also love naked cake, I don’t like cake with too much frosting. Can’t wait to try this recipe, thank you for sharing!
Great looking cake. Love the pink center. Wilton products have always been a favorite!
I love the idea of a naked cake — anything that I can call rustic and not have to have it perfectly decorated to be beautiful is a win in my book! And that’s a super fab cake caddy — no worries about that popping open and your cake going everywhere (speaking from personal experience 🙂
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