Fresh Strawberry Cake With Cream Cheese Icing
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Fresh Strawberry Cake is my Mama’s favorite and a guaranteed showstopper. I mean look at this y’all. I’ve served this at baby showers, bridal showers, brunches and made for birthdays as well. My favorite place to serve it, though, is at my own dinner table.
When Are Strawberries In Season?
I’ve had strawberries on the brain lately. The national strawberry season can be January all the way through to November so it is usually easy to find them at stores. Prices may vary depending on the time of year you want them. In deeper parts of the South they are usually ready for harvesting April and May.
When I get them I tend to eat them all on the way home, then throw the container in the trash on my way in the house. The trick is always to hide the evidence! So it’s a big restraint for me to have enough left to make fresh Strawberry Cake! Check out some of my other delicious cake recipes like Triple Chocolate Cake (a.k.a Chocoholic Cake), Red Velvet Bundt Cake, Chocolate Velvet Cake With Cream Cheese Icing and Coca Cola Cake ~Oh So Good!~.
I mean Y’all, look at that beauty. It tastes even better than it looks!
The ingredients you will need for the cake are:
- White cake mix
- Strawberry gelatin mix
- Cooking oil
- Milk
- Fresh strawberries
- Three eggs
Helpful Kitchen Tools
- Wash your strawberries and cut the tops off, slice them up a bit.
- Put them in a big old plastic bag and crush them a bit. You can use a rolling pin if you want to be civilized but somedays call for a few fun karate chops!
*The amount of strawberries needs to be one cup after they are crushed, not before.
You can use any method of crushing that you like but I find a plastic bag and a can of somethin‘ works just great.
- In a large mixing bowl, place cake mix, milk, oil, eggs, and gelatin.
- Mix that up with an electric mixer until you have a smooth, creamy, pink batter, about two minutes.
- Add in your crushed strawberries, juice and all.
- Mix that up again.
- Now grease and flour two round cake pans.
- Divide your batter evenly among the cake pans
- Bake these at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and allow to sit in the pans for ten minutes before turning out to cool completely.
Now let’s make us some cream cheese icing.
Ingredients needed for cream cheese icing
- Cream Cheese (check out our recipe for easy-peasy homemade cream cheese).
- Butter
- Powdered sugar.
Important note: If you want to decorate your cake as I have done in these photos, you will need to double this recipe.
Another note: Your cream cheese and butter really need to be room temperature so set them out earlier in the day before starting this.
- Place your butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar in a bowl. Mix ’em up til they’re nice and creamy smooth, scraping down sides as needed.
- Ice your cake however you like.
Look how pretty this fresh strawberry cake is!
And this cake is just as delicious as it is pretty!
Now cut it quick! The youngun’s are a waitin’!
Store this cake in the refrigerator. It’s even better served cold!
Ingredients
- 1 Package Plain White Cake Mix
- 1 Cup Chopped strawberries with juice
- 3/4 Cup Milk
- 1 Package Strawberry Gelatin 3 ounce
- 3/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
- 3 Eggs
Icing
- 8 ounce Cream Cheese room temp
- 4 Tablespoons butter room temp
- 3 Cups confectioner's sugar
Instructions
- Grease and flour two 8 inch round baking pans or one 9x13 inch pan.
- Wash and cut the tops of strawberries. Coarsely chop them. Gently mash strawberries by placing them in a large plastic bag and rolling over it with a rolling pin or large can.You need to measure out one cup once they are mashed.
- Place cake mix, milk, gelatin mix, vegetable oil, and eggs in large mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy, about two minutes or so. Add in strawberries and juice, mix again until well combined. Pour into baking pans.
- Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If using two round pans, allow to sit for ten minutes before turning out of pans to cool completely. If baking in 9x13 pan, simply allow to cool in pan.
- Combine all icing ingredients and mix with electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Ice cooled cake.
- Store cake in refrigerator.
- Ice cake. Store in the refrigerator.
Notes
Nutrition
The versatility of strawberries…
There are so many strawberry dishes that I love. My personal favorite is my Mama’s strawberry pie, My husband’s favorite is Strawberry punchbowl cake, and my son favors good old fashioned strawberry shortcake.
“The distance between who I am and who I want to be is separated by my actions.”
~Brian Solis
I’m going to make this cake for my boss’s birthday. Can I use butter instead of margarine for the icing?
Yes ma’am, you sure can! Wonder if you’ll get a raise… 🙂
I modified the recipe a bit . .. doubled it and it was the perfect amount for 3 9″ round pans . . . two for a double-layer cake to give away and a single layer cake for me to do the official taste test (I don’t usually give anything away that I haven’t sampled and given the thumbs-up). I used a slightly different cream cheese frosting recipe. The cake came out beautifully and tasted incredible . . . I’ll definitely be making it again . . . and it most definitely deserves a raise!
I am so glad you liked it Cheryl!
I recently made this cake for our Wednesday night dinner at chruch. It was consumed in less than fifteen minutes! Everyone enjoyed the cake. It is very easy to make and turned out to be a crowd pleaser….thanks.
I am so glad it was such a hit Ruthann!! Isn’t it great when an easy recipe gets rave reviews?!
I made this last weekend when my brother and his fiance were in town – it was a hit! My husband doesn’t care for sweets that often and he RAVED about this cake! I added fresh sliced strawberries to garnish the icing – it was beautiful! My son will be baptized tomorrow and I just made this recipe into cupcakes for the brunch. They’ll look great on a tiered cupcake stand. Thank you so much for this recipe!!
I am so glad to hear that you liked it Mary!!! Congrats on the baptism!!!
This is the first recipe I have tried from website and I made cupcakes…I gave my friend a surprise birthday lunch and everybody said they were as good as a very expensive cake bought from a bakery that we had tried several weeks ago. I also made the potates that you simply peel, cut and boil..the name has left me…and they were a hit as well. Love your website so far!
Hey Christy! Thank you SOOOOOOO much for creating a place to save the recipes!! That makes is so much easier than copying and pasting…..I am really not too good at that! ;o) Now we can all save that much more from your wonderful posts!!
made this cake for a fourth of july bbq and it was a hit! the only thing i did different was make the icing pink. this pretty cake was sliced and gone in a matter of minutes. thanks for a great recipe.
NJ GAL
Quick Tip for the icing if you add strawberries: refrigerate the powdered sugar prior to mixing the icing. This helps it to be more consistent & much easier to ice cake. Actually, I do this for all cream cheese icings. Wish that I had discovered this a long time ago, after years of trying to keep a cream cheese icing on a cake, especially during a hot/humid summer in La.!!