Y’all, my Strawberry Pound Cake recipe has gone viral more times than I can count. It’s simply the best- no lies detected. It’s perfectly moist and luscious with fresh strawberry flavor in every single tender bite. And don’t even get me started on my strawberry glaze! You will eat it by the spoonful whenever folks ain’t watching. This strawberry pound cake has got it all, and I can guarantee you won’t go looking for another recipe after you try this one. Trust!
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Strawberry season is a fave around these parts. If you look at my site, you will see a ton of recipes that do my fave fruit justice. But I gotta say, this might be my fave. When I first shared this strawberry pound cake recipe years ago, it went viral. I get it! Just look at this masterpiece. Folks couldn’t get past the fact that a strawberry cake could be made even better in a bundt package. And I went hard in the paint making sure it tasted as good as it looks. Now you can see what all the hype is about when you make it.
What is a Strawberry Pound Cake?
A strawberry pound cake is a traditional Southern pound cake made with strawberries. Simple as that. Folks serve it different ways however. You will find recipes with chopped up berries in the batter or you may find it similar to mine, where the strawberries are pureed to add additional flavor, moisture and color to the batter.
The Lowdown on the Best Strawberry Pound Cake Recipe
Cuisine Inspiration: Southern Classic with a Fruity Remix
Primary Cooking Method: Baking
Dietary Info: This is your classic sugary, gluten and dairy filled dessert but it can be adapted for dietary restrictions boos
Key Flavor: Dense, Moist, Tender, and Sweet with Juicy Strawberry Vibes
Skill Level: Intermediate
Ingredients You’ll Need to Make this Fresh Strawberry Pound Cake
For The Cake:
- Fresh Strawberries: Don’t even play around. Grab a pint of the best looking strawberries you can find! Save a few for the strawberry bundt cake because they do double duty in the glaze.
- Butter: Room temp unsalted butter will add richness and flavor giving that tender crumb we love in a pound cake.
- Granulated Sugar: Regardless of how sweet the berries are, they still need a bit of sweetening up. It’s a cake boos! Embrace some sugar.
- Eggs: These are gonna give your cake structure. Bring them to room temp before adding.
- Flour: Flour helps stabilize our strawberry pound cake batter. We sift it to make it a bit lighter.
- Salt and Baking Soda: A teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of baking soda balance out the sweetness and gives a nice lift.
- Buttermilk: Creamy buttermilk always tenderizes a cake making it super soft and moist.
- Vanilla: It adds warmth and a bit of an aromatic note.
- Strawberry Extract: While I make this ingredient optional, this can help boost that berry flavor especially if your strawberries aren’t the best.
- Pop of Color: A little red food coloring if you’re feeling fancy.
For The Glaze:
- Strawberry Puree: These were the extra berries we saved. It enhances the color so much in the end.
- Powdered Sugar: It gives our glaze a nice and smooth topping for our strawberry pound cake recipe.
- Vanilla: Gotta add a bit of this to balance the strawberries and provide a bit more complexity to the flavor.
- Citrus : I love adding a bit of acid to anything. Use lemon or lime here. It brightens the flavor so much y’all.
How to Make Strawberry Pound Cake
Step 1: Make the Puree
- Kick things off by hulling and giving those strawberries a good rinse. Whiz them up in a food processor or blender until they’re smooth. Snag 2 tablespoons and set them aside for your glaze later on.
- Pop that strawberry puree on the stove and let it simmer down for 15-20 minutes. You’re aiming for a ½ cup of thick, concentrated flavor. Then let it chill until it gets to room temp.
Step 2: Mix Up the Batter
- Preheat the oven 325 degrees and grease your 12-cup Bundt pan using your fave nonstick method.
- In your mixer’s bowl, mix the butter for 2 minutes on high. Gradually add in the sugar and let them mingle until the mix is pale yellow and fluffy. It might be a bit crumbly but that’s cool.
- Add the eggs, one by one. Don’t throw them all in at once!
- Turn down the speed to low and carefully add the flour in two parts, followed by the salt and baking soda. Go chillmode here—no overbeating.
- Pour in the buttermilk, strawberry puree, vanilla, strawberry extract, and food coloring if you’re using. Mix until just right then pause.
PRO TIPS: Make sure you don’t forget to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl as needed to make sure all the ingredients are in the mix. And also turn your mixer speed down to low when adding in your flour and final wet ingredients. We don’t want to over-activate the gluten making a tough cake in the end.
Step 3: Bake it Up and Make the Glaze
- Pour that batter into your greased up Bundt pan and let it bake for 70-80 minutes. You’re looking for an almost clean toothpick with just a few crumbs as your clue that’s it’s ready.
- Let the cake chill on a wire rack in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then flip it out onto a serving plate.
- When the cake is room temp, whisk together the strawberry puree you set aside, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a bit of lemon or lime juice.
- Once you have the consistency you like, dust a little powdered sugar on top of the cake (if you want) then pour the glaze on top. Give it 10 minutes to set and serve it up like a boss.
PRO TIP: Make sure you give your glaze a test run before you add to your cake. Add a spoon to the glaze and let it run down the side. If it’s too thin, add more powdered sugar. Too thick? A splash more citrus juice will do the trick.
How to Serve Pound Cake with Strawberries
- Garnish: When serving slices of your pound cake with strawberries, serve with a few slices of fresh strawberries and a dollop of whipped cream. You can also add a few sprigs of mint for that beautiful green color contrast.
- Spring Brunch: When Spring gets going, serve this strawberry pound cake up with lemon ricotta pancakes, blueberry streusel muffins, breakfast casserole, cheese grits and candied bacon.
- Summer BBQ: Nothing gets folks excited about this dessert like a summer feast filled with skirt steak with chimichurri, fried corn, ambrosia, baked potato salad and cornbread salad.
- Baby Shower or Reveal Party: This strawberry bundt is adorable at a shower for a baby girl y’all. It’s super fun to serve up at a gender reveal party with a blue velvet cake. Let your guests enjoy both!!
Recipe Substitutions
- Strawberries: If fresh strawberries aren’t looking too hot, frozen can work. You will need to thaw them and drain them completely. And I mean drain completely y’all. Dry them super well before making your puree so your batter isn’t watery and weighed down. If you find them to still be a bit watery, just reduce the buttermilk by about a tablespoon or two to cut down the liquids.
- Butter: No unsalted lying around? Grab salted and just leave the salt out.
- Buttermilk: I know folks don’t usually have buttermilk lying around so just make it at the crib. Just add a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to a cup of milk and let it sit for about 5 minutes until it curdles. Then use it in the recipe. You can also thin out plain yogurt with a bit of milk as well and sub here.
- Strawberry Extract and Food Coloring: You can omit both of these, and the cake will still be awesome.
Recipe Additions and Variations
- Gluten Free: Use a 1:1 baking gluten-free flour blend that you trust as a sub for the all-purpose flour here. Just make sure it has xanthan gum in it. The texture will be slightly different, just keep that in mind.
- Vegan: This will require a bit of testing on your part since I didn’t test this here. But in theory, you can replace the butter with vegan sticks, make your own vegan buttermilk with vinegar or lemon juice and oat milk, and replace the eggs with a vegan egg version. If you do try this out, let me know how it works and what changes you made in the comments.
- Strawberry Shortcake Remix: Slice this baby open like I do in my Strawberry Shortcake Pound Cake, and add fresh whipped cream and berries. So fun!
- Chocolate Covered Strawberry Vibes: Instead of using the strawberry glaze, cover the strawberry pound cake recipe with my chocolate ganache. It’s fantastic for Valentine’s Day.
- Booze it Up: For my adults, hook this batter up with a nice liqueur like Grand Marnier or Amaretto. Just a 1/4 cup will add a lil’ something something.
Expert Tips and Tricks
- Use Room Temp Ingredients: Don’t try to stick cold butter and sugar into a mixing bowl y’all. Make sure that butter is softened so it becomes creamy, light and fluffy. Make sure the eggs and buttermilk are at room temp too to ensure a smooth batter and great texture.
- Don’t Overmix: Don’t nobody want a tough cake! And the more you mix, the more you are guaranteeing just that. Chill out boos.
- Grease that Pan: If you want a clean release, you better grease that bundt pan super well. You can either use non-stick baking spray, shortening and flour (the old school way), or even my homemade cake release.
- Don’t Glaze Until the Cake is Cool: If you glaze too early, that glaze will melt and slide right on off your cake.
How to Store a Strawberry Bundt Cake Recipe
- Fridge: To keep it fresh, place the strawberry bundt cake in an airtight container, and let it chill in the fridge. It’s best to store it there to preserve the freshness so it won’t spoil. We used fresh fruit so we gotta keep an eye on it. It should keep for about 5-6 days.
- Freezer: If you want it to last longer, freeze it by making sure it’s tightly wrapped, and it will stay for up to 3 months.
- Serving Again: When serving it up, make sure you bring your slices back to room temperature so it gets all soft and delish like you first made it.
Frequently Asked Questions
While this recipe works best with fresh strawberries, you can definitely sub in some frozen strawberries. Just be prepared for some additional work. You must dry those babies out as much as humanly possible once they are thawed. If you leave them super watery, the cake just won’t be the same. That water will weigh your batter down and make it super dense.
Yep I definitely suggest doing it. Because this batter has the addition of so many liquid components, I selected an all-purpose flour because it has heft. But because it is much sturdier than a cake flour, sifting will help lighten the cake a bit. Don’t skip this step if you can help it.
The good ole toothpick trick boos. Insert a toothpick into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean or even with just a few moist crumbs, pull that baby on out. It’s ready.
When picking strawberries, they should be a nice bright red color. When you feel them, they should be pretty firm and plump too. Avoid any that are damaged and bruised with wilted or brown caps.
Enough chit chatting. You ready to find out why this strawberry pound cake goes viral? Get to baking.
Other Amazing Strawberry Dessert Recipes
- No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake
- Strawberry Butter Rose Buns
- Strawberry Ice Cream
- Strawberry Crumble Coffee Cake
- Strawberry Punch Bowl Cake
- Strawberry Lemonade Cake
- Strawberry Cupcakes
Fresh Strawberry Pound Cake Recipe
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Equipment
Ingredients
For The Cake
- 1 pint fresh strawberries (this is for glaze below as well)
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs room temperature
- 3 cups all-purpose flour sifted
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp strawberry extract optional
- 1/2 tsp red food coloring optional
For The Glaze
- 2 tbsp strawberry puree reserved from cake
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp pure lemon juice or lime juice
Instructions
For The Cake
- Remove the stems and wash strawberries thoroughly. Next add strawberries to food processor or heavy duty blender and puree until smooth. Remove 2 tablespoons of puree and set aside for glaze later on.
- Then add strawberry puree to a small pot over medium heat and reduce the puree for 15-20 minutes or until you have ½ cup left. It should be pretty thick. Cool puree down to room temperature and set aside.
- Next preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare a 12 cup Bundt pan with nonstick method of your choosing.
- In your mixer bowl, add butter and beat for 2 minutes on high speed. Slowly add in sugar and beat on high speed for an additional 4 minutes until very pale yellow and fluffy, might be a bit crumbly.
- Next, add eggs, one at a time, combining well after each addition and scraping down the sides of your bowl as needed.
- Turn your mixer down to its lowest speed, and slowly add flour in two increments, then add salt and baking soda. Be careful not to overbeat.
- Lastly, add buttermilk, the cooled strawberry puree, vanilla extract and strawberry extract and red food coloring if using and mix until just combined then stop.
- Pour cake batter into the Bundt pan and bake for 70 to 80 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes then invert cake on serving plate.
For The Glaze
- Once cake has cooled to room temperature, whisk together 2 tablespoons of the strawberry puree, powdered sugar, vanilla and lemon or lime juice until smooth and thick, but pourable.
- Use your spoon to test this by seeing how it runs down the side of the spoon. If too thin, adjust with powdered sugar and if too thick, add a bit more juice until consistency is perfect. Glaze top of cooled cake and let set for 10 minutes then serve.
Video
Notes
- Fridge: To keep it fresh, place the cake it in an airtight container, and let it chill in the fridge. It’s best to store it there to preserve the freshness so it won’t spoil. We used fresh fruit so we gotta keep an eye on it. It should keep for about 5-6 days.
- Freezer: If you want it to be last longer, freeze it by making sure it’s tightly wrapped, and it will stay for up to 3 months.
- Serving Again: Make sure you bring your slices back to room temperature so it gets all soft and delish like you first made it.
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Delicious!!My family LOVED it and says it’s better than strawberry shortcake, which is an impressive compliment. Thank you!! Will definitely be making this over and over again.
Yay!! I am so happy to hear that. Thank you for making it and sharing it with your family!
Be sure to grease your pan very well. I should have used butter and flour to do this. I used spray and it stuck terribly. So disappointed. The instructions did not specify how to grease pan so I thought spray would work. It’s a heavy and moist cake. Not like a traditional pound cake. The strawberry flavor is lacking without the extract. Maybe more vanilla would have given it a richer flavor. I usually love your recipes but won’t be making this one again.
Sorry to hear that, BH. It really does need the extract to have that pop of strawberry flavor you’d expect.
Looks delicious. Was wondering if this can be baked using a loaf pan?
Yes however you will need two loaf pans since it makes quite a bit of batter.
If you use self rising flour do you have to use baking powder
This recipe does not have baking powder in it since it is a heavier pound cake, I do recommend using all-purpose.
This cake is so moist! I didn’t have any Strawberry extract and I had everything else on hand. It was lacking that pop of Strawberry flavor. So I would say that is absolutely not optional! Next time I will use it for certain! I made up for it by serving it with fresh strawberries. My husband said this is now his favorite!
Yay so happy to hear that he loved it!
Can the purée be made ahead of time?
Hi Ebony, yep it will last a couple of days in the fridge but if you need to make really in advance, you can freeze it but it may add additional water to your final cake.
What a great cake and a great choice for spring! I made 2 cakes with the batter. The 5 cup Nordic Lotus pan for a gift and a 4.5″D x 8.5″W x 2.75″H loaf pan for us ;-). I too added more lemon and lime to the glaze but mine was to counteract the taste of the powdered sugar.
I also hulled and sliced another pint of fresh strawberries, tossed it with a tsp of ginger honey and the zest of 1 lime to serve along with the slices.
That sounds Ah-Mazing! Love the lime and ginger additions, I am going to have to try that out!
It was delicious I didn’t have strawberry extract so I added a teaspoon of sugar free strawberry jello it gave it a great strawberry flavor
Great substitute! So glad you liked it!
Best strawberry cake I’ve had! Made this gluten free with Bob’s Red Mill 1to1 Gluten Free flour. Used the strawberry extract. I was concerned it would give an artificial flavor and it didn’t. Also, because I love citrus flavors I added 2 tsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp lime juice to the glaze.
Thank you so much!!
It was ok, it was moist! But…. The strawberry flavor was very subtle, if any strawberry taste at all. The glaze was runny but I did add more strawberry puree because of the lack of strawberry. It did have a good texture. I did not add the strawberry extract because it adds a more of a fake flavor to the cake. Maybe that was why it had no strawberry flavor ♀️ I was hoping for a little more.
I’m so sorry to hear that; omitting the strawberry extract is why you were missing that pop of strawberry flavor, as it is a key part of the recipe. This recipe has been tested a dozen times at least and does not have that overwhelming fake flavor of strawberry.