My mother made countless vibrant pink strawberry layer cakes, and we gobbled them up. I called her up when I started the recipe development process, and she revealed that the strawberry cakes she made for us growing up contained strawberry Jell-O, giving the cake its bright hue.
When one of my sisters requested a strawberry cake as her wedding cake, my mother went back to the drawing board, making a semi-homemade and superior version using puréed strawberries and strawberry cake mix.
I wanted to recapture the strawberry cake magic I remember from my childhood in a homemade recipe. It took a lot of testing, but I finally ended up with a cake I’m delighted with—moist, tender, with tons of real strawberry flavor. And it’s incredibly easy to make!
strawberry cake on a plate at a table
Capturing Strawberry Flavor In Cake Form
The trickiest part about incorporating strawberries into a cake is their relatively subtle flavor and high water content. You need a lot of fresh strawberries to get the true flavor across, and that makes for one stodgy cake. They also lose some of their flavor during baking.
