This Homemade Strawberry Cake Beats All Other Birthday Cakes

Delish

This homemade strawberry cake is sweet and tart in the best way possible, thanks to the cream cheese frosting and strawberry puree incorporated into the batter.

Transcript

00:00Hey everyone, it's TA in the Delish Kitchen Studios and we are gonna make

00:04strawberry cake. Strawberry cake is unlike any other cake I've ever had. It's

00:09fresh, it's vibrant, it's fruity all the way through. It truly tastes like summer

00:15in a bite and I know you're gonna love it just as much as me. To make our

00:19strawberry cake we are gonna make two components today. The strawberry filled

00:24cake and a strawberry filled cream cheese frosting. Together they are just a

00:30magical duo. Getting true fresh strawberry flavor into a cake and a frosting can be a

00:38little tricky because you want to get as much flavor without watering down the

00:44cake and actually making it very dense. We have two forms of strawberry that we are

00:49going to be working with today. The first is freeze-dried strawberries and the

00:54second is a fresh strawberry puree that we are going to reduce down and then

00:59incorporate in our cake. We're gonna blitz these in the food processor until

01:04they're very finely ground. No chunks. At this point we're good to go so I'm gonna

01:10get them out. See I told you it flies up.

01:14Woo! Literal strawberry dust. Now we've got our strawberries. We've just stemmed

01:21them and washed them of course. We're gonna blitz these until they're pretty

01:25darn smooth. You want a puree. Our next step is to reduce this puree by about half

01:32on the stove. The reason why we reduce the puree is to remove excess moisture from

01:38it. We want to get the maximum amount of strawberry flavor with the least amount of

01:44liquid. We're gonna reduce this until it's about half the volume. We want one cup

01:49of puree. There is no precise way to tell but one thing that I sometimes do is I

01:55just look at where it is in the pot and I try to guesstimate when the level has

02:01gone down by about half. While the puree is reducing you can walk away if you want

02:07for a short amount of time but you do need to keep stirring it pretty

02:10continuously to prevent it from burning around the edges and on the bottom. Once

02:15this is reduced by about half we're gonna take it off the heat and let it cool at

02:19room temperature. We are going to whisk our dry ingredients. All-purpose flour,

02:23cornstarch, hefty amount of baking powder, and salt. Whisk just to incorporate. The

02:30cornstarch is a very important addition here. Essentially what it does is it

02:35approximates cake flour. Now we're gonna cream our butter and our sugar together.

02:40Creaming the butter and the sugar is going to help make the cake more light

02:44and fluffy. It's also going to dissolve the sugar into the butter and therefore

02:50into the cake batter. So you want this to be smooth and creamy with just those air

02:58pockets that you can sort of see in it. That's what you're looking for here. So at

03:02this point it's nice and fluffy and so we're gonna add our oil. I chose two fats

03:08for this cake because the oil adds this really luscious richness and prevents the

03:14cake from drying out. We are going to beat this just until it's incorporated. At

03:19this point it's time to add our egg whites. Now I chose to use egg whites for

03:25this cake because using whole eggs sort of interferes with that beautiful pink

03:31color. We're not dumping it all at once. Little by little. So using only egg whites

03:40means that this will be slightly leaner as a cake. You won't get the richness of the

03:46yolk and that's also why I added oil. There we go. You always want to be wiping down.

03:53We're going to add another egg. If at any point during adding the egg whites you notice that the

04:02batter starts to look split or curdly, don't panic. To fix this you can add about a tablespoon of those

04:09whisked dry ingredients in and that will help re-emulsify the batter. Last little bit of egg

04:14white going straight in. Looking pretty good. It is now time to start incorporating our dry

04:21ingredients. Into the bowl about half. No need to be precise here. This is a total

04:26guesstimation. And we're going to beat on low just until it's incorporated. At this point in the

04:33process as soon as flour starts going in you want to be very mindful not to over mix your cake batter.

04:39And now it's time to add in our milk and our strawberry puree. Adding in the wet ingredients

04:46at this point between the stages of the dry ingredients helps the batter to stay emulsified

04:51better. And the final batch of dry ingredients. At this point we're going to mix just until we see

04:57those last streaks of dry disappear. Again we are not looking to over mix this baby. We are ready to

05:03get into our cake pans and bake. So here I have two cake pans, two eight inch cake pans,

05:08lined with parchment paper, and greased. This cake doesn't really stick to the sides. It kind of

05:15actually shrinks away from the sides of the pans when it's cooked through. But the bottom is going

05:19to be super key to getting it out. Because I am eyeballing I like to stop when I still have a little

05:25bit left to go and level the cake batter that I have in the tin out just a little bit. And then

05:31take a look and see which one I think needs a little bit more. We're going to bake these cakes

05:36at 350 until they are risen and just slightly goldenish on top and they are shrinking back

05:43from the sides of the pan. It's time to make our strawberry frosting. In this bowl I have

05:51confectioner's sugar which is already sifted. It is very important that you sift your confectioner's

05:56sugar. To this confectioner's sugar I'm going to add the strawberry powder. And we're just going

06:01to sift that so we make sure that if there are any bits in it that we didn't get completely

06:07pulverized that we catch them so they don't go into the frosting. To make the buttercream we're

06:13going to start by beating butter and salt together in the bowl. It's very important that you get your

06:19butter totally smooth before the cream cheese goes in. Otherwise in the time that it takes your butter

06:26to get smooth your cream cheese might overbeat and start to separate. At this point we're going to

06:32go in with the cream cheese which is soft at room temperature. And we're going to paddle it just until

06:41it's combined. Now we're going to add our confectioner's sugar freeze-dried strawberry

06:46situation about a third at a time. You can just eyeball it. And it doesn't matter if all of the

06:51freeze-dried strawberries go in at once. The reason for the thirds is simply so the confectioner's

06:56sugar doesn't go everywhere. The stir setting, that's key also. If you turn it on high obviously

07:04it's going to go flying. I say obviously but I've definitely done it once or twice. So there's that.

07:11Once it's mostly incorporated you can just add some more.

07:16I'm just going to scrape down the bowl really quickly and make sure that nothing is

07:20lingering. And then I'm going to add the heavy cream and we're going to whip it up.

07:28And once it's thick and fluffy like that we're ready to go. Pretty in pink.

07:34Time to assemble this cake. I've taken the layer that was the least even and leveled it just slightly

07:42so that it is completely flat. It's going to help assemble the cake better. And you may notice

07:50that the sides of both of these cakes are a little like slopey. That has happened to me every time I

07:57have made this cake. It's just the way this cake is. We are going to take a cup of this buttercream

08:03ish. No need to measure. And just like dump it in the middle of the cake. And then just take the offset

08:11and spread it around. At this point it's better to have slightly more than less because you can always

08:18take some off. But if you have a less amount it might actually peel up the crumb of the cake.

08:25Second cake layer. Some cakes you want a completely flat top. With this one I like kind of a dome.

08:33Like a tiny dome. I think it looks classy. A little bit more buttercream on top.

08:37With the sides I actually like to take a glob on the back of my offset and use that to apply.

08:44And I like to sort of start it like right here at the top edge and just kind of let it fall down

08:51a little bit and then work from it from there. I do like to add some swoops and swirls and this

08:58frosting is great for that. But right now I'm just focused on coverage. And yours will look different

09:04than mine. Mine looks different than anybody else that's ever done it. It's very much a your signature.

09:21It tastes so fresh. And that's what's incredible to me is that we did not make this cake in June.

09:27You can make this cake all year round. And sure if you don't want to buy fresh strawberries

09:33frozen work too since you're just cooking them down. You know this cake isn't hard to make. It's literally

09:39two components. But it's giving that special occasion cake vibe. This is like the type of cake that you make

09:45for Mother's Day. For your best friend's birthday. It's special. For this and other sweet treats

09:52stick around on Delish.com.

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