This cute small-batch vegan strawberry cake is perfect for smaller gatherings and serves 4 to 6 people. It’s topped with a luscious strawberry frosting and filled with berry jam. This recipe has been adapted from my popular larger strawberry cake recipe!
Ingredients you’ll need
The full list of ingredient quantities and instructions are in the gray recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Strawberries, fresh or frozen. I’ve tested both varieties and they work equally as well! Make sure you use ripe and sweet strawberries as it’s the main flavor of your cake.
Sugar to sweeten the cake and bring out the flavor of the strawberries! This cake doesn’t use as much sugar as other layer cakes as the strawberries add a lot of natural sweetness.
Pink food coloring for a little extra pink color. When the cake is made with only fresh strawberries, it’s a dull pink color. Pink food coloring provides more consistent results than using beetroot powder or strawberry powder, as the latter two are more likely to brown in the oven.
If you want to make your own strawberry jam filling, you’ll also need cornstarch. And if you want to decorate the cake with my strawberry frosting, you’ll also need vegan butter and powdered sugar.
Prepare the cake batter
First, puree the strawberries in a blender until smooth. Set aside.
In a large bowl, add all your dry ingredients and mix until combined. Make sure you mix the ingredients very well so the baking powder is evenly dispersed… we don’t want any bitter pockets in our cake :).
Add the strawberry puree, and the rest of the wet ingredients then mix until just combined. It’s okay if there are some small lumps in your batter, as long as they aren’t dry lumps of flour! Overmixing the cake batter results in a dry and bread-like cake. No, thank you!
I used just under ⅛ teaspoon of pink gel food coloring and added it with the wet ingredients. This is about the same as ¼-1/2 teaspoon of liquid food coloring. Keep in mind that the color will darken in the oven!
Baking the cake
The cakes take about 20-23 minutes to bake in a preheated oven. When you insert a toothpick in the middle, it should come out clean.
If you own cake strips, I recommend using them for this vegan strawberry cake. Cake strips prevent some browning on the edges of the cake, and minimize domes from forming on top. Don’t worry – if you don’t have cake strips, these cakes will still bake beautifully!
Decorating the cake
I decorated my strawberry cake with strawberry frosting which is naturally colored and flavored with strawberries. If you want some vanilla frosting for your cake (like below), beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together according to the recipe. Remove a little of the plain frosting, then mix in the strawberry puree or freeze-dried strawberries for your strawberry frosting.
I also filled my cake with raspberry jam and decorated it with fresh strawberries, and freeze-dried raspberries. Feel free to decorate your cake as you wish! It will also be delicious with:
Customizing this recipe
I recommend using my gluten-free strawberry cake and baking it in 2 x 6-inch cake pans.
This cake doesn’t work well with all-purpose gluten-free flour and Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 flour as they result in overly dense and doughy cakes.
More vegan strawberry recipes
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Small-batch Vegan Strawberry Cake
Servings: 6
Ingredients
To decorate (or see note 2 for alternatives)
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Instructions
Prepare the fresh strawberry puree:
Make the strawberry cake:
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Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease or line 2 x 6 inch (15 cm) round cake pans with parchment paper.
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Add all the dry cake ingredients to a large mixing bowl and stir well. Add the strawberry puree and wet cake ingredients and stir until just combined. Be careful to not overmix the batter. Lumps in the cake batter are fine, as long as there aren’t pockets of flour.
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Divide the batter between your 2 cake pans and smooth the surface.
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Bake the cakes for around 20-23 minutes. They’re ready when you can insert a toothpick in the middle and it comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in their pans for around 10 minutes then remove them to cool on a wire rack.
To assemble the cake:
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When the cakes have completely cooled, slice off the dome of both cakes. Place on a serving plate.
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Spread or pipe around ¾ cup of frosting on the cake. If you’re filling your cake with fruit preserves, create a dam of frosting and spoon the preserves in the middle. Place the remaining cake on top.
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Spread or pipe the remaining frosting around the cake. Garnish with fresh strawberries or as desired.
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Store the cake in an airtight container at room temperature until serving. Store leftovers in the fridge for 2-3 days. Make sure you let the cake come to room temperature for 1-2 hours before serving.
Notes
- Please measure your flour properly using the spoon and level method, otherwise your cake will be dry and dense. Fluff up the flour in its container, use a spoon to add it to a measuring cup and level it off with a knife. Do not use the measuring cup to scoop flour out of the container as this will add too much flour to the batter. For the best results, use the gram measurements and an electric kitchen scale.
- Alternatively, you can decorate the cake with my strawberry cream cheese frosting or lemon buttercream.
- To make your own quick jam, add
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