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.
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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.