Oh what a beauty. This strawberry milkshake cake is a treat for your taste buds AND for your eyes! Why milkshake you wonder? Well, this cake is not just loaded and soaked with milk but the frosting tastes EXACTLY like strawberry ice cream – or strawberry milkshake. It is amazing! I made a cream cheese buttercream, flavored it just slightly with pureed, sweetened strawberries and it turned out perfectly. The cake itself is a white cake soaked in milk. Super moist, super milky and super delicious.
When making the frosting, you have to make sure all the ingredients have the same temperature. I actually did this mistake here and my frosting curdled a little bit. If this happens to you, here is what you need to do:
Frost the cake with the frosting at room temperature and use a warm spatula (put the spatula in hot or warm water for a few seconds). That will smooth the frosting as it warms it and the cake will turn out beautifully! I would also recommend cutting the cake with a hot knife, otherwise the frosting will “break”. This way you get really nice sharp edges.
If you want to know how to frost a layer cake, check out my tutorial here!
- 2 sticks unsalted Challenge butter, room temperature
- 4.5 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
- 2 cups milk
- 8 large egg whites
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
- 2.5 cups sugar
- Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C and butter and flour three 6 inch cake pans.
- Make the cake: In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg whites and milk. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
- In the bowl of your electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla on medium to high speed until light and fluffy, for about 3 minutes.
- Add a third of your milk-egg mixture and a third of your flour mixture while running your mixer on low speed until just incorporated. Add the remaining flour and milk mixtures in 2 separate batches while continuing to run your mixer on low speed. Stop the mixer when incorporated.
- Spread the batter evenly among the cake pans and smooth out the batter. Bake for about 40-45 minutes until the cakes are golden and a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool down on a cooling rack completely. When cool, cut off the tops and pour some of the milk on top of the cakes.
- Make the frosting: Beat the cream cheese until fluffy. With the mixer running on low speed, add the butter piece by piece. Turn up the speed and beat for about 5 mins.
- Add the sifted powdered sugar and keep beating, then add the strawberry puree. Make sure all ingredients have the same temperature to prevent the frosting from curdling up!
- Beat until incorporated then start assembling and frosting your cake. See my tutorial if you need help with that!
I’m on a cake quest and this one looks incrediblllllle! Holy crap! My daughter’s favorite milikshake is strawberry banana, so I may need to add a touch of banana liquer in the frosting. Yum.
GASP! i want to eat it, or frame it, or both! i love strawberries and milk… looks so good! xo
Thank you Lyndsay 😉
Beautiful, sounds delicious and perfect for the summer months.
Hi Melina
What size cake pans did you use in this recipe, 6×2 or 6×3. Also, how do you make strawberry puree.
Hi Jackie,
I used 6×2 inch but you can use 6×3 inch as well.
As for the strawberry puree, just take a little over half a cup of strawberries and add sugar according to taste. I added a good tablespoon full but it depends on the sweetness of the strawberries. And in the end, you will put it in the buttercream and add a bunch more sugar 😉 Puree it, done!
Great looking cake–I’ve never thought of soaking the sponge in milk (usually simple syrup or a liquor is what I go for). I’m new to your blog and enjoying it (I’m also a cake lover and fellow food blogger, always out for inspiration!)
This is absolutely stunning! Almost too pretty to eat! Almost.
That looks insanely good!!
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Hi, but do you think i can make these into cupcakes?
Sure! 😉
Hi I have started to make this cake 4.5cups of flour to make the strawberry milkshake cake seams a lot is this correct .
Could you please let me know so soon as possible as I would love to make this for tomorrow
Thanks
Sandra
I just made the cake and its a ton of batter…. do you usually have extra?
I’m not sure what I did wrong… My frosting was so thin and even after tripling the sugar, it’s barely spreadable! Your cake clearly turned out beautiful! Where did I go wrong??
Hello Melina,
I tried the cake. Pretty tasty. Husband loved it. I halved the ingredients because didn’t want a big one on to first. try. The frosting I need to work on. It it fluffy when whipped and warm but when it’s sits still (e.g. On the cake) you can see it “sweating”. How can I fix it?
Hello, my name is Carlie Goleman. I’m thinking about making the strawberry milkshake cake for my daughter’s 1st birthday and I need to make her a smash cake and about 24 cup cakes. I need to know if I could decorate the smash cake with different colors using food coloring with the frosting recipe. And also, could I make the cup cakes using only the cake recipe? You can get a hold of me by e-mail at carliel31gh@gmail.com . I have until March 20th. Thank you