BEST EVER STRAWBERRY CAKE

Strawberry cake made with fresh strawberries and no Jell-O? Yes, it’s possible and it’s delicious! The secret is adding a fresh strawberry reduction to your cake batter and mix the rest into your buttercream frosting for a fresh strawberry cake recipe that tastes like real strawberries! 

If you’ve been to Pinterest lately, you will have approximately one TRILLION recipes for strawberry cake. I tried a few from some big-name blogs that I thought would for sure delivery and boy was I disappointed. Most recipes contained either Jell-O for the strawberry flavor or the use of a boxed mix.

“silently cries tears of pain”

I just wanted an easy scratch recipe made with real strawberries! Is that not too much to ask?

Now I am definitely not the best baker in the world but I do enjoy a challenge so I set myself up to see if I could make a really good strawberry cake. I gave myself two rules. I had to use real strawberries and the flavor had to taste like real strawberries in the cake alone.

CAN YOU MAKE A FRESH STRAWBERRY CAKE WITHOUT JELL-O?

Now don’t get me wrong. I love me some Jell-O but not in my cakes. Gelatin is not something I would think to add to my cake to make the texture light in fluffy, more like gummy and dense. I think the worst thing about a strawberry cake made with Jell-O is that it tastes like fake strawberries.

Pretty tasty in jolly ranchers but not so much in my cake. So one of my personal challenges was to make a strawberry cake without gelatin.

FRESH STRAWBERRY CAKE TESTS AND FAILS

So I began testing my own strawberry cake recipes. I have never worked so long an hard on one recipe. SO many failed attempts and I almost gave up. This is probably way more information than you ever needed to know about strawberry cake.

Here are some of the things I tried to make a successful strawberry cake with fresh strawberries.

Ingredients

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Fresh Strawberry Cake Ingredients

• 14 oz (397 g) AP flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 8 oz (227 g) unsalted butter room temp
• 10 oz (284 g) granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract
• 1 1/2 tsp strawberry extract

zest one lemon

• 6 oz (170 g) egg whites room temp
• 4 oz (113 g) strawberry reduction room temp
• 6 oz (170 g) milk room temp
• 1/2 tsp electric pink food color

Strawberry Reduction

• 16 oz (454 g) frozen strawberries
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 pinch salt
• 4 oz (113 g) sugar

Easy Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

• 4 oz (113 g) pasteurized egg whites
• 16 oz (454 g) unsalted butter
• 16 oz (454 g) powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 oz (113 g) strawberry reduction

YOU CAB TRY THIS RECIPE HERE

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 603kcal (30%) | Carbohydrates: 63g (21%) | Protein: 3g (6%) | Fat: 39g (60%) | Saturated Fat: 24g (120%) | Cholesterol: 102mg (34%) | Sodium: 222mg (9%) | Potassium: 89mg (3%) | Fiber: 1g (4%) | Sugar: 50g (56%) | Vitamin A: 1190IU (24%) | Vitamin C: 2.9mg (4%) | Calcium: 37mg (4%) | Iron: 0.8mg (4%)

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