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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!

cake with slice missing showing yellow cake and pink filling inside on mint cake plate


Why you’ll LOVE this cake

Truth be told, yellow cake with strawberries is my favorite kind of cake. Add in a vanilla frosting and I’ll attack it with a fork! This cake is pretty and easy enough, even for someone who isn’t a cake expert.

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 two of my favorite things: strawberry shortcake and yellow cake with vanilla frosting. It turns those two simple flavors into an explosion of (easy to make) cake flavor.

slice of cake laying on white plate on brown table

Why is this Strawberry Shortcake Layer Cake so easy?

  1. You can start it with a cake mix! I used my yellow cake recipe, but feel free to just use a box.
  2. The filling is just strawberries mixed with canned icing. I used a bit of red coloring to make the filling even more pink. Make my homemade vanilla buttercream instead for a homemade frosting.
  3. Because the cake was intentionally left unfrosted, I just did a light coating of white on the outside to give it a rustic look.

A Strawberry Shortcake Layer Cake is an easy cake recipe for summer. Yellow cake, frosting, strawberries, and whipped cream transform an ordinary dessert into an extraordinary cake!

cake on mint cake plate with fresh strawberries on top

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.
  • Frosting: To make it even easier you can use cans of icing, or you can make my vanilla buttercream recipe.
  • Strawberries: I chop them fine and stir them into the frosting for the filling, along with pink food coloring.
  • Cream Cheese, Heavy Whipping Cream, Powdered Sugar: This is what you’ll need to make that stable whipped cream frosting.

Be sure to see the recipe card below for full ingredients & instructions!

process shots how to make a Strawberry Shortcake Layer Cake

How to make Strawberry Shortcake Cake

  • Make and cool your cake: Bake your cake in 8-inch 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 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!
slice of strawberry shortcake layer cake on white plate with fresh berries on top

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.

FAQ

What’s the difference between strawberry cake and strawberry shortcake?

Strawberry cake, traditionally, is a cake made with strawberry puree. Shortcake is more like a biscuit.

What is the difference between cake and shortcake?

Cake is light and fluffy and served with frosting, while shortcake is more of a biscuit type recipe.

How do you keep strawberry shortcakes from getting soggy?

For layer cake, make sure that your cake is baked all the way, and that it’s cooled completely before assembling. Adding the strawberries into the frosting help them from getting too weepy.

How long can Strawberry Shortcake sit out?

This cake should be refrigerated because of the whipped cream frosting. It’s fine sitting out for a few hours.

Can I make strawberry shortcake the night before?

You can make the cake the night before but I’d assemble this the day of eating.

My whipped cream frosting is wet and flat what happened?

Chances are you needed to beat it more. Beat it until stiff peaks form.

cake with slice missing showing yellow cake and pink filling inside on mint cake plate

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

5 from 3 votes
Strawberry Shortcake Layer Cake is a fun cake for strawberry season, made with yellow cake, strawberry filling and whipped cream frosting! I’m not a great cake decorator but this was easy to make!
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 2 hours 40 minutes
Yield 12 servings
Serving Size 1 slice

Ingredients
 

  • 1 recipe yellow cake baked in 9” rounds (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)
  • Wilton Color Right Red optional
  • 8 ounces (225g) cream cheese
  • 1 cup (113g) powdered sugar
  • 1 ½ cups (356ml) cold heavy whipping cream
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Instructions

  • Bake cakes in 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 Video

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.

Recipe Nutrition

Serving: 1slice | Calories: 350kcal | Carbohydrates: 40g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 28g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 31mg | Sodium: 106mg | Sugar: 31g
Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate
Course Dessert
Cuisine American

Strawberry Shortcake Recipes

Last Updated on March 17, 2023



Dorothy Kern

Welcome to Crazy for Crust, where I share recipes that are sometimes crazy, often with a crust, and always served with a slice of life.

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13 Comments

  1. I have reread the directions
    Five times. I don’t know what I did but the cake didn’t rise it was as then as paper. 😥

    1. If the cake didn’t rise that is not this recipes fault – check the baking powder you used – was it expired? This cake has been used in several of my recipes and does rise.

  2. This cake is the best! The last few times I’ve made it the filling was too runny and squished out almost completely. The only difference I can think of is the heat and humidity in my house although I keep everything refrigerated as much as possible. Any suggestions?

    1. Sometimes the whipped cream frosting does that. I can only guess it’s from the heat and humidity or possibly over or under mixing.

  3. Can we use the whipped cream icing with the strawberries for in between the layers? I don’t like that stuff Wilton sells.

    1. Just make your own icing with butter, cream, and icing sugar. There’s a million receipes out there

      1. 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.

  4. 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!

  5. 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 🙂