A few years ago, I created this Strawberry Lemonade cake that became an instant hit: cake flavored with fresh strawberries (pureed and reduced), filled with strawberry buttercream, topped with lemon buttercream – basically Summer in cake form! It’s been on my list to write an all-strawberry cake recipe ever since, and after getting a request for one via Instagram DM, I knew it was time. I took to the store for a pound of fresh strawberries and a package of freeze dried strawberries to give you the ultimate flavor profile. I promise, it’s as delicious as it is pretty to look at!
When it comes to flavoring a cake with fresh strawberries, it’s not enough to just chop them up and add them to your batter (you’ll just have a vanilla cake with weird strawberry chunks). It’s also not enough to simply puree them, since the excess liquid tends to water down the flavor. Instead, you must puree and reduce the strawberries to intensify the strawberry flavor while evaporating most of the liquid.
For this fluffy and flavorful strawberry cake, I started with my favorite Vanilla Cake recipe as a base and adjusted the leavening agents to accommodate the acidity in the strawberries (aka I reduced the baking soda slightly). After the reduced strawberry puree hits room temperature, I whisked it together with the whole milk in the recipe and added it in at the end. Reducing the strawberries does make this recipe a little bit more involved, but it’s so worth it for the incredible flavor!
Remember how I said freeze-dried strawberries are best for flavoring the buttercream? This is because adding fresh (or even frozen) strawberries to buttercream will add way too much liquid and not enough flavor. As opposed to simply freezing strawberries, the process of freeze-drying eliminates all of the liquid from the berry, leaving only the intense flavor. After grinding those freeze-dried berries into a fine powder, adding them to buttercream is the only way (in my humble opinion) to get that refreshing, pure flavor you imagine when you think of strawberry buttercream.
After filling and frosting these beautiful cake layers with tasty strawberry buttercream, I decorated with pretty piping (using Wilton Tips 1M for the rosettes and 4B for the stars), fresh strawberries, and chamomile flowers. The flowers were an impulse on the way out of the store – I couldn’t stop imagining them on my final cake design and felt safe to use them because they’re 100% edible
Xi'an Forward Trading Company is processors, packagers and distributors of Dried Strawberries we have established long business cooperation with70dried Strawberries planters, covering120hectare of dried Strawberries orchards in Shaanxi Province, China. If you are intrested in dried Strawberries and would like to lean more, welcome to contact us @ email: sales@driedfruitsnack.com and WhatsApp: +8613991488775.
