Rich dark chocolate cake with fresh strawberries, strawberry cream frosting and chocolate ganache, all topped with fresh strawberries. The espresso powder gives this cake a deep rich chocolate flavor which is bound to wow your taste buds. The creamy strawberry frosting tastes like the strawberry and cream that you were used to eating at your grandmother’s house as a child. It always reminds of me a See’s Candy. Oh gracious my mouth is watering just thinking about it.
The best part of this Chocolate Strawberry Cake recipe is definitely the combination of the sweet and creamy strawberry frosting combined with the slight bitterness of the dark chocolate rich cake. The mixture of those two flavors is amazingly delicious.
I love to make this cake for birthdays or even for Valentine’s Day. The beautiful color of this Amazing Chocolate Strawberry layer cake looks like you’ve spent a fortune on a bakery made cake yet instead it’s a more budget friendly and tasty homemade cake. Let’s be real for a minute, a cake that is made with love tastes so much better than any grocery store cake that you could buy.
To bake this cake I used three 9 inch cake pans. I love a triple layered cake. It just looks so inviting when you slice into the cake and see the layers of fluffy rich cake, topped with creamy and sweet frosting. It makes your mouth just crave a tasty bite of it’s sweet flavor. And, that first bite is always the best. I think the fresh strawberries on top of this Strawberry Chocolate Layer Cake makes it even more beautiful and provides a freshness that you can’t compare to a store bought cake.
I’m serving this Amazing Chocolate Strawberry Layer Cake for my family for Valentine’s Day this year. This cake is definitely one of the most popular cakes that I’ve made. Then simpleness of just the fresh strawberries on the top of the layered cake really seems to add so much beauty to the cake. What is your favorite cake to make?
Amazing Chocolate Strawberry Cake
Ingredients
Cake Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 ½ cups special dark chocolate cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 large eggs
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 ½ cup warm water
- ½ teaspoon espresso powder
- ½ cup canola oil
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Strawberry Frosting Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted sweet cream butter, softened
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup finely diced strawberries
- 5 - 7 tablespoon tbsp heavy whipping cream
- Strawberry for topping
Chocolate Ganache Ingredients
- 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray three 9 in cake pans with pam baking spray
- In a small bowl, whisk together the espresso and the warm water until combined
- Using your standing mixer, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt until combined
- Gradually add in the eggs, sour cream, buttermilk, espresso, oil and vanilla extract until combined and
- Divide the batter between the 3 pans
- Place in the oven to bake for 25-35 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean
- Allow cakes to cool for 20 minutes
Strawberry Frosting Directions
- Using a standing mixer, cream together the butter, vanilla, powdered sugar, diced strawberries and heavy whipping cream until combined and creamy and stiff with peaks
- Scoop 1 C of frosting into the piping bag
- Directions to build the cake
- Place 1 layer of cake onto the cake board
- Using the ice cream scooper, scoop out 4-6 scoops of frosting and smooth evenly on one layer of cake
- Place another layer of cake on top and spread more frosting
- Place the last layer on top and frost the remaining cake with remaining frosting
- Chocolate Ganache
- Using a small pot, heat up the heavy whipping cream until steaming
- While heavy whipping cream is heating up, place chocolate chips into a
heat-proof bowl - Once the heavy whipping cream is heated, pour over the chocolate chips
- Allow to sit for 1 minute before whisking until smooth
- Pour ganache into the squeeze bottle
- Pipe dollops of ganache over the edge of the cake
- Pipe dollops of frosting onto the top of the cake
- Place strawberries into the dollops of frosting
- Cut and serve and enjoy