This vegan strawberry cake is made with two layers of cake and a decadent dairy-free cream cheese frosting. It's moist, tender and bursting with fruity deliciousness!
I love fresh summer fruit of all kinds. That includes everything from peaches and nectarines to blueberries, cherries and melons. It's hard to pick a favorite! But if I absolutely had to choose one, I think it would be strawberries.
Strawberries are delicious in both sweet and savory recipes, and when they're good, they're SO GOOD — sweet and juicy and so fragrant.
Strawberry cake is a delicious dessert that I don't think gets nearly enough attention. I'm not talking about strawberry shortcake (which I also love), but rather cake where we're incorporating actual strawberries in the batter and the frosting.
This particular recipe is adapted from my vegan vanilla cake recipe, but I've replaced some of the wet ingredients with concentrated strawberry puree, for a fruity blast of flavor. The cake gets topped and filled with dairy-free strawberry cream cheese frosting, which is super decadent and has a beautiful vibrant pink color.
The combination is so delicious, and pretty to boot!
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Ingredients You'll Need
Here's what you'll need for the cake:
- Strawberries. Use sweet, ripe strawberries when they're in season. When they're not, feel free to substitute with frozen berries. Thaw them first.
- Flour. We're using all-purpose wheat flour. I haven't tried using gluten-free flour or any other varieties, so experiment at your own risk.
- Sugar. Use organic sugar to keep the recipe vegan. Conventional sugar may be processed using animal bone char, so it's not vegan.
- Baking powder.
- Baking soda.
- Salt.
- Non-dairy milk. Almond milk, soy milk, cashew milk, or just about any variety of non-dairy milk that's suitable for drinking will work — just make sure it's unsweetened and unflavored.
- Vegetable oil. Feel free to use whatever type of oil you like to bake with, whether it's regular old vegetable oil, melted coconut oil, or avocado oil. All are fine!
- Vanilla extract.
- Strawberry extract.
And you'll also want to grab the following for the strawberry cream cheese frosting:
- Freeze-dried strawberries. Lots of grocery stores carry these, including Trader Joe's and whole foods. You can also buy freeze dried strawberries on Amazon. Another option is to buy freeze dried strawberry powder instead, which will save you a step when you make the frosting, but can be a bit tougher to find, at least in stores.
- Vegan butter. This is typically sold near the regular butter at most supermarkets. Earth Balance and Miyoko's are a couple of popular brands to look out for.
- Vegan cream cheese. You can usually find this in the refrigerated natural foods section at the supermarket. Tofutti and Kite Hill are some popular brands to try.
- Vanilla extract.
- Powdered sugar. Just like with the regular sugar, this ingredient needs to be organic.
How It's Made
Below is a detailed photo tutorial on how to make this dish. Scroll all the way down if you'd like to skip right to the recipe!
To Make the Cake
Before you start baking, you'll need to make a reduced strawberry puree. Don't worry, this is easy!
Place the strawberries into a blender or food processor and blend them up until you've got a smooth puree. You should have about 1 cup.
Transfer the puree to a small saucepan and cook it at a low simmer until it reduces by about half. It should look glossy and have thickened slightly when it's done. Let it cool.
Tip: The reduced puree can take a while to cool. You can speed this up though! After letting it cool until the pan is warm to touch, place it in an ice or cold water bath. It'll be completely cool in minutes.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
To combine the wet ingredients, start by placing the concentrated berry puree in a liquid measuring cup. Add non-dairy milk until the 1 ¾ cup line is reached. Now stir in the oil, vanilla, and strawberry extracts, as well as food coloring if you're using it.
Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry mixture, then beat everything together with an electric mixer.
Divide the batter among a couple of oiled and parchment paper-lined round cake pans. Bake them until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean.
Tip: For perfectly even layers, weigh the cake pans using a food scale as you add the batter.
To Make the Frosting
Make your frosting while the strawberry cake layers cool.
Place the freeze-dried strawberries into a blender or food processor and blend them to a powder.
To make the frosting, first beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla together with an electric mixer. Beat in the strawberry powder, then powdered sugar, adding until the frosting is thick and creamy.
Assemble and Frost the Cake
Invert one layer onto a plate, slather it with frosting, then top it with the second layer and cover everything with the remaining frosting.
Your vegan strawberry cake is ready to slice and enjoy!
Leftovers & Storage
This cake keeps best in the refrigerator, because vegan cream cheese frosting tends to get pretty sloppy at room temperature. Cover it tightly in plastic or store it in an airtight cake keeper and it will stay fresh for 3 to 4 days.
More Vegan Strawberry Sweets
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Strawberry Cake
Ingredients
For the Strawberry Cake
- 1 pound fresh strawberries, hulled and cleaned
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups organic granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups unflavored and unsweetened non-dairy milk, or as needed
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon strawberry extract
- 2 drops pink or red food coloring, optional, or as needed to reach desired color (Note 1)
For the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 cup freeze-dried strawberries (Note 2)
- ½ cup vegan butter, at room temperature
- 8 ounces vegan cream cheese, chilled
- 3 cups organic powdered sugar, plus up to 1 additional cup, as needed
Instructions
To Make the Cake
- Place the berries into a blender or food processor and blend them to a smooth puree.
- Transfer the strawberry puree to a small saucepan and set it over medium heat.
- Bring the mixture to a low boil. Lower the heat if needed, so that it's just at a low simmer. Let the mixture simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced by about half, about 20 minutes. Let the mixture cool while you begin preparing the other ingredients. (Note 3)
- Preheat the oven to 350°.
- Oil and flour two 9-inch round cake pans, then line the bottoms with parchment paper.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
- Transfer the reduced strawberry puree to a liquid measuring cup. You should have about ½ cup. (Note 4)
- Add the non-dairy milk to the liquid measuring cup just until you have 1 ¾ cup total liquid volume (made up of the strawberry puree and milk combined).
- Stir in the oil, vanilla, strawberry extract, and food coloring, if using.
- Add the liquid mixture to the bowl with the dry ingredients. Beat the ingredients together with an electric mixer at high speed just until the batter is smooth, about 1 minute.
- Divide the batter among the two baking pans.
- Bake the cake layers for 24 to 26 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Place the cake pans on cooling racks and allow the layers to cool completely before removing them from the pans.
To Make the Frosting
- Place the freeze-dried berries into a food processor or blender and blend them to a powder.
- Place the vegan butter, cream cheese, and vanilla extract into a large mixing bowl. Beat them together with an electric mixer at high speed until creamy.
- Beat in the powdered strawberries.
- Begin adding the powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time, fully beating in each addition before adding more. Continue adding powdered sugar until the frosting reaches your desired consistency and flavor.
Assemble and Frost the Cake
- Once the cake layers have cooled, invert one of the layers onto a plate. Peel off the parchment paper.
- Spread a thick layer of frosting over the layer.
- Invert the second layer over the first layer, then cover the top and sides with the remaining frosting.
- Slice and serve.
Notes
- Make sure your food coloring is vegan, if you use it. I used McCormick's red food dye.
- One half cup of freeze dried strawberry powder can be substituted if it's available. This will allow you to skip the step of blending the berries to a powder.
- You can accelerate the cooling process by placing the saucepan into an ice or cold water bath. Wait a few minutes after taking it off of heat to do this, in order to let the pan begin cooling. Otherwise it could warp.
- It's okay if you have slightly more or less than that. The next step will adjust for small variations in volume.
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