Vegan Strawberry Cake

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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!

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

The following 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.