- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making a delicious melt in your mouth strawberry cake.
So let's get started.
First off, we're making a strawberry reduction,
with fresh berries, of course.
This is gonna flavor our cake layers
and give it a beautiful soft pink color, as well.
So we're gonna hull them, cut them in half,
and then, we're gonna get to blending.
And we're not there yet, but I have to tell you,
the frosting for this cake is mind-bendingly delicious.
It has fresh strawberries throughout.
They're like whipped into the frosting.
And it has cream cheese, too, ah.
We're using one pound of fresh strawberries for this.
If you want, you could definitely use frozen strawberries.
Just thaw them and drain, as well.
I'm gonna add these into like a little mini food processor.
A blender will definitely work, though.
So we have our delicious strawberry puree,
but this has so much water in it,
and we need to concentrate the flavor.
We're gonna place our strawberries over medium heat
for about 25 minutes.
If you're using frozen strawberries, 45 minutes.
This is simmering away over medium heat.
It really just needs like frequent occasional stirring
so it doesn't burn.
You're gonna take all the excess water out of here
so it's pure strawberry concentrated flavor.
And if you want,
you could make this a day or two ahead of time
and just keep it in the fridge.
It doesn't have to be made the same day.
And it does take a couple minutes.
So you can break the process apart into a couple days
if you're super busy
but still want delicious baked goods, like I do.
I love this strawberry reduction,
but if you're really pressed for time
and still wanna make the cake,
you can substitute the reduction for strawberry jam.
Strawberry jam, however, has a lot of extra sugar added,
so go ahead and, one, strain the jam so there's no clumps,
and, two, reduce the sugar added to the cake
by 1/3 of a cup.
So it's reduced.
You can see it's really holding a streak.
And a lot of that water is gone,
so the flavor's gonna be nice and concentrated.
We're gonna plop this into a bowl or a pan.
I want this to cool down really quick,
because your reduction needs to be close to room temperature
before you use it.
So it just needs some time.
Unlike raspberries, which really give you
the most beautiful soft pink color ever,
when you cook strawberries, they go kind of grayish.
So I did add a drop of red food coloring to this.
In part, because I want the cake
to have a beautiful soft pink color
and not be kind of grayish,
'cause a grayish strawberry cake puts people ill at ease.
I put this into a large shallow dish.
I'm gonna spread it around.
And it can cool on the counter,
or you could pop it into the fridge,
but let it cool down just a bit first,
'cause this is steaming hot.
(clock ticks)
After a while, your reduction is cooled.
Look how thick that is.
But I just wanna show you,
it's actually still a liquid.
It just looks like it's totally solid.
We're gonna get the dry ingredients together.
You need to set that oven to 350 Fahrenheit
so it's nice and warm.
And in a large bowl,
we're gonna add our flour, salt, et cetera,
starting with 330 grams, or 2 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour.
I'd also like a teaspoon of kosher salt for contrast,
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda,
2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
for the rest of our leavening.
So we're just giving this a quick whisk.
And we're gonna set it aside.
Now, we're gonna grab a mixer out.
You could use a stand mixer, like I am today,
or you could use a bowl and a hand mixer.
Into the bowl of my mixer,
I'm adding one cup, two sticks, 227 grams,
of unsalted room temperature butter.
And just so you can see, I can press into it.
It's yielding to the touch with not too much effort.
My butter's all creamed up.
Now, I'm gonna add two cups, or 400 grams,
of granulated sugar.
This is gonna mix up for five minutes
until it's nice and creamy.
But let's scrape the bowl down first.
I do wanna remind you that if you did the shortcut
and used strained jam instead of the reduction,
you should have added in 1/3 of a cup less sugar.
That would be 1 2/3 cups.
Right now, I am separating out
four room temperature egg whites.
Egg yolks are delicious,
but I want this cake to have a beautiful pale pink color,
and the yolks are just too orange.
One more scrape down.
Now, on medium, and we're just gonna add those slowly.
I'm also adding in two teaspoons of vanilla.
Now, we have the classic dilemma of a soupy situation on top
with rock-hard butter underneath.
So we need to scrape the bowl down
and get a really nice homogenous consistency.
If you have any bits of butter that are not mixed in,
they're gonna melt.
And what happens is you get these pockmarks in your cake,
or big holes.
It kind of sucks.
I'm gonna mix this on medium, medium high
for about a minute, until it is nice and smooth
and some air gets incorporated, as well.
In the meantime, get your flour mixture out,
your reduction, and 1/2 cup of whole milk, as well.
That looks great.
It actually looks really like just light and fluffy,
like a cloud, a delicious cloud.
I'm measuring out 1/2 a cup of my strawberry reduction.
Whenever you're making a cake,
you do want to measure out all the liquids
and be really precise.
'Cause if you add too much, your cake is gonna be,
you know, watered down, kind of like bleh.
Light and fluffy is the perfect ratio of ingredients.
So now, while mixing on low,
we're gonna add the flour in about three batches,
alternating with the milk and the strawberry reduction.
It doesn't have to be precise
with like exactly half of this or whatever.
You're just giving all the ingredients
a better chance to mix,
which is why you're alternating.
I'm gonna take a look at the color, as well,
and see if I'm happy with it.
If it doesn't look just right,
I'll be adjusting it with a little bit of food coloring.
Scraping the bowl down, very important.
Doesn't even look colored on the side.
I don't know, that looks pretty nice and pink.
I'm gonna add in just a tiny drop.
I'm really only doing it for you
so you can see what it looks like.
If it looks a little bright, by the way,
the color fades in the bake.
So if you wanna get like a nice pink,
go a little pinker than you think you need,
and it'll all work out.
That's good.
Nice.
Two nine-inch pans buttered and floured.
Should be three six-inch pans if you want.
I'm really only buttering the side
and giving a little bit on the bottom
because I'm using a parchment round.
Some flour to the side.
This batter smells so good.
And if you look, I'll show you when it's in the pan,
but there's streaks of the strawberries all throughout.
It's just beautiful.
I wanna have this same amount of batter in each pan.
Just give it a nice spread to help level it out.
Same for the other pan.
Weigh them really quickly if you want.
Okay, they're basically the same.
I'm almost ashamed to show you this,
but these ancient cake strips still work,
so I haven't replaced them yet.
They predate the channel.
That's how old they are.
They're basically just wet fabric strips
that you wrap around your cake pans,
and they help give you a nice, even bake,
and the sides are a little bit softer.
These cakes are ready to go into the oven,
350 for half an hour
or until the centers are springy to the touch.
(timer dings)
While our cake bakes,
we're gonna make this easy, delicious strawberry frosting.
One cup of butter, 226 grams.
One package of cream cheese.
Also, 226 grams is eight ounces for each.
We're gonna mix these up
until they're nice and creamy and combined.
And while they mix, one teaspoon of vanilla,
as well as a nice pinch of salt.
One of my pet peeves is a baked good
that has an improper amount of salt.
If you have something sweet,
you need a little bit of salt
to help balance it and wake everything up.
It really helps you taste the flavors.
Scrape that bowl down.
Cream cheese in frostings is so good.
You can add cream cheese to almost any frosting.
Just sub in the cream cheese for the butter.
Usually, it's a one-to-one ratio.
And if you want extra Preppy Kitchen baking points,
try using some mascarpone in a frosting.
Ooh-ooh.
Once your butter and cream cheese
is all mixed up with the vanilla and salt,
we're gonna add one cup of powdered sugar at a time.
And for this recipe, I would use six cups of powdered sugar,
that's 720 grams, to start.
You could add more
if it's too runny or not sweet enough for you.
This is the remaining puree that I have left.
It's a little bit over 1/4 cup.
I'm just gonna add in like a tablespoon at a time.
We're gonna get a nice, pretty color from the strawberries.
We might add a little bit of food coloring
just to amp it up, like just one drop.
And if you don't wanna use food coloring,
you could definitely add in like a tiny bit of beet powder
or raspberry juice.
That gives you the most pretty color ever.
Just like squeeze some raspberries through a sieve.
That'll give you a beautiful color.
And the taste, you won't even really notice
the raspberry note.
You can see all the puree is making the frosting super wet,
which is why we're gonna add more sugar in.
I have about 6 1/2 cups of powdered sugar in here.
And the frosting's looking pretty good.
I actually want it to be nice and loose.
Let's scrape the bowl down
and then give it one final mix.
Let's give it a taste.
It's so nice.
The cream cheese and the strawberries are best friends,
so it's perfectly flavored.
I actually love the color.
I don't think it needs any additional dye or anything.
So we're just gonna start assembling the cake.
(timer dings)
My ultrasoft strawberry cakes are out of the pan,
cool to the touch.
It's time to assemble.
Just a little bit of frosting on the bottom
to hold them in place.
Now, we're gonna add one cup of the frosting
onto the first layer.
This frosting has so much of the strawberry reduction in it
that it's fairly soft,
but that's how I like it.
Smooth this out into an even layer.
Add your second layer on.
And it is time to completely cover this
in strawberry frosting.
This is such a simple, old-school cake,
but it's a classic for a reason.
This gives you bright strawberry flavors throughout
in a soft, melt in your mouth cake.
I'm adding all the strawberry frosting on top,
and we'll work it down to the side.
And this cake gets finished off
with really simple rustic sweeps,
which is exactly how my mom would decorate cakes.
Work the frosting down the side.
We're just going for a complete coverage.
Now, the fun part is going through the cake
and just swooping it up.
So kind of lift the cake,
cut into it with your palette knife,
and it's gonna look so beautiful in no time.
As a finishing touch,
I'm just adding three cute little strawberries
right in the center, just like that.
This cake is a strawberry dream come true.
All that's left is to cut it open and have a bite.
I wish you could like be here with me and eat this cake,
because it is so pillowy soft
and just full of strawberry flavor throughout.
And that cream cheese frosting,
I gotta tell you, it's practically perfect in every way.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
If you like this video, check out my summer cake playlist.