Strawberry Cake. No artificial colour or flavour added!
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Strawberry Cake. There is no artificial colouring or flavouring used to get the beautiful pink hues in this delicious, made from scratch, strawberry cake.
There are a lot of recipes out there for brightly coloured, pink strawberry cakes. To be honest, I haven't liked many of them.
When you search around on the web for Strawberry Cake, or see beautiful examples on Pinterest, I'm very often disappointed. I find that they are mostly flavoured and coloured by adding strawberry jelly powder and/or food colouring to the recipe.
So many people have a sensitivity to food colourings, especially those in the red spectrum. I wanted to try to come up with a pretty pink cake recipe to share in time for Mother's Day in about a week's time.
I will not say that I was immediately successful in my attempts at a strawberry cake. One of them was so heavy and dense that it went straight into the garbage bin.
Strawberry Cake. Getting the flavour right.
I tried using straight strawberry puree which did not colour or flavour the cake enough. What was necessary was to concentrate both the colour and the flavour of the strawberries before I added it to the cake batter and the frosting.
I decided to make a slowly simmered and greatly reduced simple strawberry jam for this purpose. When pureed, it worked very well in both the cake and the frosting.
I think the strawberry frosting is pretty essential to this cake. It really does help to carry that authentic strawberry flavour.
To get the best colour possible, I actually did leave the strawberries out on the counter for a few days to get as ripe as possible. I let their colour darken, without leaving them there long enough to go bad.
Plan a Strawberry Cake this summer.
When strawberries are in season we get them at Lester's Farm U-Pick, here in St. John's. When they are next in season, I think I'll pick a basket of them specifically to make this cake.
You know, the one's that get left behind and are a deep dark red. They would be perfect.
You can have this strawberry cake at your Mother's Day celebration or as a birthday cake for a special kid in your life. You know one who loves pink, I am sure.
It's great knowing that you can achieve great flavour and colour by completely natural means.
2018 Winter update: I recently made this cake using some frozen strawberries that I bought at Costco. I've been told that many of the whole frozen strawberries that we buy are actually riper than the fresh ones that go to market.
That kind of makes sense to me because obviously they would have a much shorter shelf life in the fresh market. Better to flash freeze them and sell them that way.
This also means that they have a deeper colour which I found worked well with this recipe.
Lone story short, don't hesitate to use frozen strawberries at any time. You'll still have a delicious cake in the end.
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Strawberry Cake - no artificial colour or flavour added!
Strawberry Cake - there is no artificial colouring or flavouring used to get the beautiful pink hues in this delicious, made from scratch, strawberry cake.
Ingredients
For the strawberry jam puree
- 3 cups very ripe sliced strawberries
- ½ cup sugar
For the cake batter
- ¾ cup butter
- 1 ¼ cups sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ¼ cups whipping cream
- ¾ cup strawberry jam puree
For the Strawberry Frosting
- 6 cups icing sugar, powdered sugar
- 1 cup room temperature butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup strawberry jam puree
- a little milk, if necessary
Instructions
To prepare the strawberry jam puree
- You will need to prepare this puree in advance so that it has time to cool before being added to the cake batter.
- In a small saucepan combine the strawberries and sugar and bring them to a gentle simmer.
- Continue to simmer stirring occasionally for a half hour or so until the volume of the berries has reduced by at least half.
- Allow the berries to cool before pureeing with an immersion blender or with a few pulses in a standard counter top blender. You will need a total of 1 ¼ cups of this puree for to make both the cake and the frosting. Any excess can be stored in a covered container and used as jam for your morning toast.
To prepare the cake batter.
- Grease and flour two 8 or 9 inch cake pans. Line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper for easy release later. (You can also bake this cake in a large bundt pan which has been generously greased and then floured. The bundt pan may take extra time, just let the toothpick test be your guide.)
- Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Sift together the all purpose flour, the cake flour, the baking powder and baking soda.
- Mix the strawberry puree with the whipping cream.
- Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter mixture alternately with the cream and strawberry puree mixture. folding well after each addition.
- Always begin and end with the dry ingredients. As a general rule add the dry ingredients in 3 equal portions and the liquid ingredients in 2 equal portions.
- Bake at 325 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until wooden toothpick comes out clean.
- Let the cakes rest in the pans for 5-10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
To prepare the frosting
- Cream together the butter with half of the icing sugar, then add the strawberry puree a couple of tablespoons at a time, alternately with some of the remaining icing sugar. Beat until smooth and spreadable.
- The moisture content in the strawberry puree will probably vary from batch to batch so you may need a little more icing sugar if the frosting is too soft or add a tablespoon or two of milk if it is too thick. You want a nice soft, spreadable consistency.
- Frost the cake with the finished icing and garnish with fresh strawberries.
Notes
Prep time does not include the additional time for the jam puree to cool.
If you want to bake this in a bundt pan follow the instructions given. If you want to poor a chocolate ganache glaze over the cake, just heat ¼ cup of whipping cream in the microwave for a few seconds to get it slightly warm then add it to 1 cup of dark chocolate chips in a double boiler until the chocolate is smooth.
Recommended Products
Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.
Nutrition Information
Yield
16Serving Size
sliceAmount Per Serving Calories 626Saturated Fat 17gCholesterol 110mgSodium 238mgCarbohydrates 95gFiber 2gSugar 74gProtein 4g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
My daughter challenged me to bake a strawberry cake with no artificial flavors or colors. This cake recipe helped me to meet and exceed that challenge! Not only was the cake all natural, but I baked it with organic ingredients and it turned out splendidly! The frosting is tangy and delicious, the cake moist and tasty. The batter was very thick; I had to scoop it into the cake pans and then slam the pans on the countertop to get the batter to spread out evenly and eliminate air bubbles. I was worried that the cake would be very dry, but it was just the opposite - moist and sweet. I love this recipe. Best strawberry cake recipe ever!
That is terrific to hear!
Hello. Curious of how substitutions may work for this. I want to use organic ingredients, honey in place of sugar, and coconut oil (in lieu of butter) and flour. Any ideas on how to achieve best substitution ratios?
Not my area of expertise, I'm afraid.
Salted or Unsalted butter?? I'm going to make this cake for my daughters birthday party on Sunday, I am very excited!
I use salted but either will work.
I have found through numerous occasions of baking cakes that unsalted butter for some reason just works and tastes better. However, I use a higher fat content butter (European) like Irish Butter my all time favorite. It has the most incredible flavor and every time I have used regular butter I can really taste the difference. What do you think Barry when using a higher quality butter in your baked goods, can you taste the difference? #Rula
Depends on the recipe. Things like shortbread or other cookies, definitely.
This sounds soooooo good I have been looking for an all natural strawberry cake, I'm gonna make this beauty for my daughter's 11th birthday Saturday she loves her some strawberry's
Thanks
I just made this cake and was kinda disappointed. Don't get me wrong this cake is very good. My one complainte is that this cake did not turn out the pretty pink color shown in the photograph.... But frosting covers it so it's all good.👍🏻
The cake colour is going to come from the intensity of colour in your strawberries. Very ripe, deep red strawberries are best. Some people have told me frozen strawberries were good too.
Totally agree with the color of the cake have 3 times already and still can't get dark pink hue this I did use frozen strawberries and the puree is a lot father but still no pink hue. Really didn't want to he food coloring
Do you have a wild guess how much frozen strawberry I would need to do this? I have frozen berries from the summer. I'm sure it will take longer to reduce them, but I'm not sure if I need to start with more or less or the same?
Thanks!
My daughter requested strawberry cake for her birthday on Sunday and I was feeling discouraged until I came across this recipe.
Way more than the measurement of strawberry puree. 3-4 times the rough measurement in strawberries...kinda depends on the size of the berries too. if you make too much, its great on toast!
Any suggestions to add chocolate? I was thinking chocolate chips in the batter, chocolate dipped strawberries on top and drizzling chocolate over all.
That all sounds good to me. Use mini chocolate chips. They are less likely to sink in the batter.
I was wondering if you whip the cream or is it as is...still in liquid form. You say to fold in, so I assume, whipped?
Not whipped.
I love, love love this cake! I am in central Nl.LOving our beautiful spring weather this weekend? LOL
Absolutely LOVE this cake. We went strawberry picking last weekend and after eating ALL of the fresh strawberries we possibly could, I made a pie and then froze some. We still had tons left over so we made this cake and it was fantastic (the neighbours thought so too)! I have to admit, I'm making it again for the second time in a week because it was so delicious. Thanks for the fantastic recipe! ~Karina (Ontario, Canada)
Thanks for the great review. So please you liked it!
I am going to make this cake on the weekend - my husband, the Newfoundlander in the house - loves strawberries in everything! So, I am going to surprise him with this recipe. Also, I want to say that I love your website. The recipes never disappoint and when I make recipes from you it makes my husband less homesick. So many of them remind him of his Mom's cooking. Thanks so much!
Do you have an update on how much to use if you're using frozen strawberries? I bought a 4 pound bag but wasn't sure if that would be enough. Also do I let them thaw before simmering or can I put them in the pot to simmer frozen?
If you make extra you can always use it like jam. I do simmer them from frozen.
Does it matter whether you use all all purpose flour?
It matters to the texture of the baked cake.
I made cupcakes with this recipe, turned out delicious. But my family doesn’t like too much icing (even though this one is delicious). I have the icing in a piping bag sealed in a resealable bag in the fridge to apply to the cupcakes as needed. How long do you think it will last in the fridge?
A week or so for sure.
Hi, whipping cream is super expensive where I live.. would like to know if you have an idea of a good substitute? Or, at least, what is the function of the whipping cream in this recipe? So that I can experiment with the best substitute available to me. Thanks 🙂
I'd try full fat milk.
Hello,
Just made this cake, the colour was way off, but that was due to the ripeness of the frozen strawberries. I did have trouble with the icing when I added the purée it didn't mix very well with the butter, and made the icing clumpy.
The amount of icing sugar will vary with water content in the fruit. Just add more to bring it to the right consistency.