This Small 6 Inch Strawberry Cake is made from scratch using fresh strawberries. No cake mix and no strawberry jello! Makes enough cake to have dessert for two.
Earlier this week I shared my recipe for Small Batch Cream Cheese Frosting. Today I’m sharing the cake recipe I used it for – Small 6 Inch Strawberry Cake. I tested this recipe 5 times to get the ingredient list just right without it sinking in the middle.
I decided to do a miniseries of 6 inch cakes after posting my Small Chocolate Cake and Small Yellow Cake recipes. When you’re making dessert for two, you definitely don’t need a large layer cake! I’m hoping to redo a lot of my past layer cakes into small one layer cakes. Leave a comment below if you have a special request!
Two weekends ago Dad and I went strawberry picking like we do every summer. We walked away with about 5 pounds of fresh berries. I knew right away I wanted to work on a small strawberry cake.
Over the years I’ve been working on several strawberry cake recipes. The problem with most strawberry cake recipes is they’re usually made with a cake mix. Or if they are made from scratch, they’re made using jello and not fresh strawberries.
The problem with using fresh strawberries, however, is it tends to add too much liquid to the batter. The solution?
Cooking the strawberries down to a jam-like consistency. This allows you to add fresh strawberry flavor while also controlling the amount of excess liquid added.
Using only egg whites instead of a whole egg means the pink color shines through. However, that also means leftover egg yolks. No worries! Check out my list of recipes using leftover egg yolks.
If you don’t have one already, you’re going to need a 6 inch round cake pan. You can buy one either on Amazon (affiliate link) or you can buy one in the cake decorating section of your local craft store.
I frosted this particular cake with traditional cream cheese frosting, but you can also use Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting or even Chocolate Frosting.
More Strawberry Cake Recipes
- Strawberry Layer Cake – This recipe makes more than dessert for two, but it’s perfect for celebrations like birthdays and anniversaries.
- Strawberry Snack Cake – Made in an 8 inch square pan, this cake is ideal for small get togethers.
- Strawberry Cupcakes – Makes only 6 cupcakes!
Small 6 Inch Strawberry Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries
- 1 tablespoon water
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 2 egg whites, room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 tablespoons milk
- Few drops red food coloring (optional)
- Small Batch Cream Cheese Frosting (get recipe here)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease one 6-inch round cake pan then line the bottom with parchment paper.
- In a small saucepan, stir together 3/4 cup strawberries, water, and 1 tablespoon sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Boil for 4-5 minutes or until the strawberries cook down and are a jam-like consistency. You should have about 2 heaping tablespoons of cooked strawberries. Remove from the heat and cool 15 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and cornstarch. Stir in the baking powder and salt.
- In a large mixing bowl on medium speed, beat together the butter and remaining 1/2 cup sugar until creamy, 1-2 minutes.
- Beat in the egg whites, one at a time, then add the vanilla.
- On low speed add the flour mixture alternating with the milk, adding the flour in 3 additions and the milk in 2 additions (begin and end with dry ingredients). Do not overmix.
- Stir in the cooked strawberry mixture and remaining 1/4 cup strawberries. At this point if the batter isn't pink enough, add a few drops of red food coloring if desired.
- Transfer the batter to the cake pan. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes then invert cake onto cooling rack. Cool completely.
- Frost cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (get recipe here).
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RossC says
Oh yes… Happy to see a doable (by me) strawberry cake..This will be baked soon.. :O)
Carla says
Enjoy! Let me know how it turns out.
Diego Lopes says
This cake actually looks cute, lol. Delicious too, of course. Can’t wait to try it.
Carla says
Ha I try ;) Enjoy!
JoAnne says
I made this cake today, It’s so pretty and very tasty! This is definitely a cake I will make often. Thank you for the recipe and the other 6 inch pan cakes, I live alone and these are the perfect size. :)
Carla says
Thank you for the positive feedback! I’m working on some more 6 inch cakes – stay tuned :D
Mel says
I tried the recipe this afternoon. It turned out lovely; thank you for sharing! :)
Also for anyone who may wonder if something like almond milk will work in this instead of regular milk, I can confirm it does.
Carla says
Thank you for the positive feedback! And thank you for letting us know almond milk works well.
Jillian says
This strawberry cake was the perfect size for my family of 4. Everyone loved it!
Carla says
Happy to hear everyone enjoyed it!
Danielle Wolter says
Strawberry season is the best! This cake sound perfect – it’s just the 2 of us so a mini cake is the perfect size.
Carla says
Let me know if you try it!
Arooba says
Can we use oil instead of butter?
Carla says
I haven’t tested it with oil, but I would say no because it’ll throw off the ingredient ratio. You’re beating a solid stick of butter, so liquid oil wouldn’t be a good 1:1 substitute. If you were to use oil, you’d need to adjust the other ingredients to compensate for the extra liquid in the recipe.
Ash. says
Can you use frozen strawberries in this recipe?
Carla says
I haven’t tried it with frozen strawberries. I’d let them thaw and drain them of any excess liquid before using in this recipe. If they’re too wet, it may alter the batter.
Helen says
I have those Wilson Easy Layers cake pans. I wonder if I could use 1 or 2 of those? I just love these small cake recipes. Thanks for all your testing.
Carla says
I don’t have them, but I looked them up. Looks like they are 6 inches round (yay!) but only .75 inch deep. You will definitely need two, possibly even three to account for the cake rising (if it rises too high over the edge of the pan, it’ll sink back down and create a dip in the middle). So I bet you can use them as long as you divide the batter accordingly.
Anaïs says
I made this cake (in cupcakes) yesterday and it turned out great. Pretty AND good. We don’t have very tasty strawberries yet so I added some strawberry extract. I’ll try again in a couple of weeks when fruits will be sweeter. I was wondering if this kind of cake could be made with peaches? Or would these have too much water in them?
I ordered a 6 inch pan, can’t wait to try the other small cakes! Thanks for your inspiration Miss Introvert :)
Carla says
Happy to hear this recipe works as cupcakes! I haven’t tried them with peaches. In theory it should work, but like you said peaches have a lot of water in them, probably even more so than strawberries so hard to say without testing. I do have a different recipe for peach cupcakes if you wanted to check them out. I haven’t scaled down the recipe yet, so it does make 12 for now: https://www.chocolatemoosey.com/2013/08/19/peaches-and-cream-stuffed-cupcakes/