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This strawberry layer cake is the first dessert of the year; oh and it’s a good one! Tonya (one of the ladies in our church), made this cake for her son’s birthday. While chomping down my second slice; I asked her for the recipe. It was delicious and I’m sharing this goodness with you.
Also, I’ve finally tried the alternate way of making the biskvit cake layers and they turned out perfect (I believe this to be the a more “fool-proof” recipe. Oh and the strawberry/chocolate decorations were ridiculously easy (plenty of oohs and ahhs over the 3D chocolate); see the tutorial here.
Oh oh and one more thing; the beauty of this strawberry layer cake is that you can really easily cut everything in half (6 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour….blah blah) to make a smaller cake and it will turn out just as dang good.
Strawberry Layer Cake Ingredients:
12 large eggs, room temp, divided
2 cups granulated sugar, divided
2 cups all-purpose flour, divided *measured correctly
Frosting Ingredients:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
16 oz cream cheese, softened at room temp
3/4 cup granulated sugar
Filling/Decor:
2 lbs Fresh strawberries (1 1/2 lbs to blend and put inside the cake and 1/2 lb to decorate)
Chocolate chips to melt and decorate the top; optional
Baking strawberry layer cake Layers:
If you’ve never made a European Sponge Cake, watch this video for the basic version and see just how simple it is!
Preheat oven to 350˚F.
1. Grease and line only the bottom of a 9×13″ cake pan with parchment paper (line 2 pans if you have 2). I have found that it’s best not to line or grease the sides of the pan or the cake becomes somewhat miss-shaped.
You will bake your cake layers separately so for each biskvit layer:
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together 6 eggs and 1 cup sugar on high speed for 10 minutes and it will be 3-4 times in volume
3. Sift in 1 cup all-purpose flour and use a spatula to gently fold it in just until well incorporated and no more clumps of flour remain. Scrape from the bottom of the bowl to make sure there aren’t any trapped pockets of flour, but don’t overwork the batter or it will deflate.
4. Transfer your batter to the lined baking pan and bake at 350˚F for 17-20 min or until top is golden and toothpick comes out clean.
(While the first layer is baking, start working on your second cake layer repeating steps 1-3 above). Remove baked cake from the pan by running a thin edged spatula around the sides to loosen it, then let it cool to room temperature before removing the parchment paper.
Strawberry Filling:
Cut strawberries into halves or quarters and place them in the bowl of a food processor; pulse 15 times or until the consistency of a chunky applesauce; set aside
Frosting:
Beat together cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth (1 min). Add 1 cup heavy whipping cream and beat on high speed until fluffy (3 minutes)
Assembly:
1. Cut each cooled cake layer in half. Place the first layer on your serving dish (this cake is too big and heavy to transfer so put it on the dish you’re serving it on).
2. Spread the first layer with 1/3 of the strawberry puree. Spread just a thin layer of frosting (just a thin layer or you won’t have enough to frost the sides in the end) on the second half and place it over the first layer so the strawberries and cream are hugging. Repeat with the next layers.
So the order from the bottom up is: cake; strawberry; cream; cake; strawberry; cream;cake; strawberries; cream; cake; cream (frost the top and sides with remaining frosting)
Decorate the top with fresh strawberries and chocolate (see chocolate decorating tutorial here
Strawberry Layer Cake Recipe

Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 12 large eggs, room temp, divided
- 2 cups granulated sugar, divided
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
Frosting:
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 16 oz cream cheese, softened at room temp
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
Filling/Decor:
- 2 lbs Fresh strawberries, 1 1/2 lbs to blend and put inside the cake and 1/2 lb to decorate the top
- Chocolate chips to melt and decorate the top; optional
Instructions
Baking the Cake Layers: Preheat oven to 350˚F.
- Grease and line only the bottom of a 9x13" cake pan with parchment paper (line 2 pans if you have 2). I have found that it's best not to line or grease the sides of the pan or the cake becomes somewhat miss-shaped.
- You will bake your cake layers separately so for each biskvit layer: in the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together 6 eggs and 1 cup sugar on high speed for 10 min. it will be 3-4 times in volume.
- Sift in 1 cup all-purpose flour and use a spatula to gently fold it in just until well incorporated and no more clumps of flour remain. Scrape from the bottom of the bowl to make sure there aren't any trapped pockets of flour, but don't overwork the batter or it will deflate.
- Transfer to lined baking pan and bake until top is golden and toothpick comes out clean 17-20 min.
- (While the first layer is baking, start making your second cake layer repeating steps 1-3 above)
- Remove baked cake from the pan by running a thin edged spatula around the sides to loosen it, then let it cool to room temperature before removing the parchment paper.
Strawberry Filling:
- Cut strawberries into halves or quarters and place them in the bowl of a food processor; pulse 15 times or until the consistency of a chunky applesauce; set aside.
Frosting:
- Beat together cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth (1 min). Add 1 cup heavy whipping cream and beat on high speed until fluffy (2-3 minutes).
Assembly:
- Cut each cooled cake layer in half. Place the first layer on your serving dish (this cake is too big and heavy to transfer so put it on the dish you're serving it on)
- Spread the first layer with 1/3 of the strawberry puree. Spread a very thin layer of frosting on the second half and place it over the first layer so the strawberries and cream are hugging. Repeat with the next layers. So the order from the bottom up is: cake; strawberry; cream; cake; strawberry; cream;cake; strawberries; cream; cake; cream (frost the top and sides with remaining frosting).
- Decorate the top with fresh strawberries and chocolate (see chocolate decorating tutorial below)
Such a beautiful cake – looks and sounds delicious! I love the step-by-step instructions too 🙂
Hi Natasha! I would just like to say thanks so much for all the awesome recipes you post. I’ve made a ton already and none have ever been a disappointment. This cake was absolutely perfect! My brother who is an extreme salo type of guy told me that this is officially new favorite cake, he already ordered another one for this weekend:) The balance of the cake was wonderful, I added cocoa powder on the sides and the mix of flavors was amazing. I worried that it would be a little dry, but especially on day two it was perfectly moist. I (genius) didn’t realize it would rise so well so I made it in a round pan. As you can imagine I had a very tall, round cake. I gave a lot of it away and got amazing reviews, even from those who have no sweet tooth. Again, thanks for posting and may God bless you, and your family!
What a wonderful review. Thank you Anna for taking the time to let me know you all enjoyed the recipe 🙂 I bet that was a beautiful tower of a cake! Did you post a picture of it anywhere online? I’d love to see it!
The only picture I got was of the plate and crumbs left on it that my cousin sent lol. Ah well, the point was that they enjoyed it:)
Picture is a thousand words :).
I made this cake the other day and let me tell you….it was honestly one of the best cakes I have EVER tried, not kidding!!! I personally love fruity type biskvit cakes so this was just perfect! I did make a few minor changes: for the biskvit I only used 9 eggs/1.5 cups sugar/1.5 cups flour and baked it in 3 round forms (so I ended up with 6 layers instead of 4). Also, I added 2 tbsp sugar to the strawberry puree since strawberries aren’t in season so they are less sweet. I will definitely be making this again. Thanks Natasha, for another great recipe 🙂
I can just imagine how lovely your cake was with 6 round layers. WOW! Did you post a picture of it anywhere online? I’d love to see it!
I didn’t, but it was so pretty!
Hi Galina, I’m wondering if you remember how long you baked the round cakes for? I’d love to make this for my daughter’s birthday and would definitely need to make it round. Thanks!
Thanks so much! Loved this cake!! Made it yesterday and it’s almost gone! I love how the cream and strawberry puree taste together on the inside. It’s a great combo 🙂 Everybody loved it. Wouldn’t have had this plus many many other awesome recipes if it wasn’t for your blog. 🙂
You are welcome Irene :). I’m glad you like the blog.
I love strawberry layers in a cake! Your styling is so pretty too: strawberry halves covered with chocolate…
Thank you Julia, I’m learning :).
Hi Natasha! So i was just over looking the recipe ingredients for tomorrow only to realize i forgot to buy the heavy cream 🙁 could i substituted that for half n Half or should i make a run for that heavy cream?
Heavy cream is est for this recipe or the cream probably won’t be thick enough.
Amazing cake;) thanks for great receipe! You doing awesome job;)
Thank you Anastasia :). I’m glad you like it.
Natasha, thank you so much for posting this recipe! I made it this weekend and everyone loved it. So I decided that when summer comes this cake will be #1 0n my list…..Also, I forgot to mention that I did not have enough cream for the top of the cake so I opened cool whip and used it for top and sides of the cake and it came out beautiful 🙂 It is definitely a best strawberry shortcake that I ever tried…
You are welcome Tatyana :). I can’t wait for summer, its 1°F outside right now. Good weather to sit by the fire place and have some cake with tea.
Tried this at my sister in laws the other night and it was DELICIOUS! Light and fluffy with the perfect amount of sweetness. Can’t wait to make it myself! :)))
How fun that your sister made it 🙂 and I’m so glad you liked it!
I made this cake today and we had some with tea after evening church. Anyway, I halved the recipe; so I baked two korzhi using 3 eggs for each. I really liked this method for making biskvit. It came out very nice. I used frozen strawberries that I froze back in the spring/summer season. They tasted kind of tart to me, so I added sugar to my taste. However, I think that the frosting is not enough. At first I halved the frosting ingredients, but i knew it wasn’t going to be enough, so I added more heavy cream and sugar “na glaz”. Next time I’m just going to make regular amount of cream for half the amount of korzhi ingredients. But anyway, the cake tasted very good. Nice and moist. It’s a good cake to make esli srochno nado k chayu or gosti priezhayut:) I forgot to mention that the cake tastes “light and refreshing” because of the strawberries I think. I had 2 slices:)
I’m glad you like the cake Alena :). I’m craving some right now with tea.
Made this cake last night and it was a huge hit with my in laws..so delicious and moist and actually pretty simple to make with few ingredients….Thanks for posting yet another great recipe…
You’re welcome. I’m glad you all loved it 🙂
cake is very good!!
First off, thank you so very much for being willing to share your family’s recipes with the rest of us. There is a tendency among Slavic homemakers to closely guard their culinary secrets, which is frustrating for the rest of us that want to cook authentic Russian food. How is Russian food going to be appreciated if no one shares? So, thanks again for sharing.
Secondly, I am also a night shift RN, and I can’t imagine HOW you find the time for family, work and blogging! I check your blog every morning after work to see what I’ll be cooking up:) However you do it, keep it up, but don’t forget to give yourself a stress break.
Blessings from Washington:)
Thanks Esther 🙂 I’ve always thought that Slavic people do guard their culinary secrets, but I’ve been so pleasantly surprised by the ladies in my Ukrainian church who always shared when I asked. I think there are really only a handful of people who will actually say NO (probably the same thing in any culture) which just makes us reluctant to ask. I love hearing from fellow night shift RN’s 🙂
Hi Natasha,thank you so much for all you do,i check your site every day,it such a big help for me,i actually learned how to bake cakes now and i made this one the other day,just loved it,very delicious may God bless you and your family.
I love reading comments like this :D. You are welcome Veronica.
Hi Natasha,
I just made this cake today. It’s very simple to do. One thing though, it seems like you had lots of strawberry filling on each layer. I used 1.5 lb strawberries like in your recipe, and really had to stretch how much I put on my layers (3 in all for the strawberry filling). And even though I did put a thin layer of the cream cheese frosting, I just covered the top of the cake, and had no leftover cream for the sides. What did I do wrong? I’m going to cut into the cake tomorrow and see how it turns out (I really do not like eating dry cake, so I’m hoping it’ll still be moist enough, once the strawberries and cream absorb into the cake itself).
You can always use more strawberries, but this cake is definitely not a dry one (but I’d also love to know what you thought of it). You really just need a thin layer of frosting in between each layer which is plenty in the end. Hope you love the tast of this cake!
Now that we’ve had the taste of the cake, it was actually really good. And it was moist, but next time I will use more strawberries and decrease amount of cream in between the layers like you are suggesting. But in all it was a fast and easy cake to make for my son’s birthday, decorated with strawberries and chocolate (I think he ate most of the chocolate decors and strawberries from the top of the cake, and not much of the cake itself, but that just leaves more cake for us!)
My son plucked off the chocolate too 🙂
Hello Natasha! I was wondering about your fancy technique of making bisquit cake batter. I never seperated the yolks from the whites; I thought I was doing something wrong. lol. I’m glad to know that I was simply doing it the “foolproof way” lol. It really is very simple this way… Been doing it since I made my first cake when I was 12 (:
Beautiful job on the post, as always. Looks lovely! There goes my new years resolution… ); lol
I learned this technique just recently :).
Wow this looks great. I’ve never done a biskvit cake before.. I think its about time I try.
I would love some feedback once you make it :).
OMG. I’m drooling all over the screen, Natasha! I usually could care less for the cake but your photos make me want to eat it. Great post as always.;)
Thank you :D. You should make it to prevent any additional drooling :).
I only add sugar to frozen mixed berries not strawberries, because berries are more tart.
When strawberries are not in season, you can substitute with frozen berries (from Trader Joe’s) add 1 tbl sp of sugar and blend. Reserve some berries for decoration as well, or you can just pile as much as you want on top of the cake (while still frozen, so they hold their texture). Simple, yet delicious!
Thanks for the tip Marina! I did try the frozen strawberries already in sugar and thought they were too sweet, but plain frozen strawberries with a small amount of sugar would probably work well! 🙂