The Ultimate Strawberry Layer Cake With Claire Saffitz | Dessert Person

What are you making for dessert this week?

Made this for my wife this weekend on a whim. Didn't have buttermilk so substituted with greek yogurt and some extra milk. Worked well. It's one of her all time favorites

I made this for 4th of July. Everyone loved it! I added about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar to the whipping cream to sweeten it a little and was glad that I did. Clair mentioned that this cake is hard to cut because of the strawberries on top so I cut the cake before adding the strawberries to the top layer. It was nice having the cake cut already so was able to easily and quickly give everyone a slice at the park and I didn’t have to worry about bringing a knife to our gathering.

Ultimate Strawberry Layer Cake

Special Equipment:
9-inch springform pan or 9-inch cake pan with 2-inch sides
stand mixer

CORNMEAL CAKE:
Butter for the pan
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal (2.6 oz / 75g)
1 cup buttermilk (8.5 oz / 250g) at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (7 oz / 200g)
1 tablespoon baking powder (0.42 oz/ 12g)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
3/4 cup sugar (5.3 oz / 150g)
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
10 tablespoons unsalted butter (5 oz / 142g), at room temperature
2 large eggs (3.5 oz / 100g), at room temperature

MACERATED BERRIES
1 1/2 pounds (681g) strawberries, hulled (about 4 cups)
1/4 cup sugar (1.8 oz / 50g)
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 cups heavy cream (16 oz/ 454g)

Hydrate the cornmeal by mixing it with the buttermilk, which helps to soften the cornmeal. Add the vanilla, allow to hydrate while you assemble all the other ingredients.

Grease the cake pans really well all around the bottom and sides. Press a parchment round into the bottom, smooth it to eliminate air bubbles, then brush it with whatever butter is left on the brush. This will make it very easy to turn the cake out. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add sugar to a new bowl, finely zest the lemon into the sugar. Before you cream the butter and sugar together, massage the zest and the sugar together with your fingertips. Add 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter, cream on low just until everything's combined and then increase the speed. Beat it until it's really light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. You want it to emulsify and stay light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl, add the flower mixture in three additions, alternating the buttermilk mixture in two additions, mixing on low until the butter is smooth and homogenous before the next addition. Do the last bit of mixing by hand with a spatula, making sure to get at the bottom where there might be some unincorporated buttery areas.

Pour the batter into the pan, smoothing it to make sure there's no air pockets. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before assembly.

Choose 5 large, hulled berries, to be placed cut-side down as columns for structural support between the layers.

Slice the remaining berries, add the lemon juice and quarter cup sugar, toss to coat.

Slice the cake into two layers—this can be done easier by placing toothpicks into the side all around and using them as a guide to cut.

Whip the cream in a large bowl, increasing speed as it thickens, until somewhere between a medium and firm texture, moving but still holding its shape.

Place the support strawberries, four around the edge and one in the middle, then a layer of about half of the macerated berry slices, allowing juices to moisten the bottom layer. Add a layer of whipped cream, top with the top cake layer, then place remaining whipped cream on top and top with remaining berry slices. Pour remaining maceration juices over the top.
------
Had to type out the recipe, figured I'd share it.

Made this last night - really good! Would personally recommend taking 50% of the sugar from the strawberries and adding it to the whipped cream. Agree with Claire's thought process that the cake and strawberries have enough sugar for the whipped cream to be sugar-less, but found that when you got a bit of a mouthful of unsweetened whipped cream it was a little off putting. Overall great recipe though!

Don’t get all the good comments on this cake. I followed the recipe to a T. I went slow and measured by the gram. It looked perfect! I served it and 6/6 people hated it. It tasted like cornbread with no sugar whipped cream and strawberries on top. Very dissatisfied after all that work

I made this cake it was aaaaamazing

I feel the same way about our peach season in South Carolina :) They are so wonderful and ripe/nearly overripe that I question myself on whether to bake them or just have them fresh :)

The cat cam is always so cute 😭

Could this be made in two 6" cake pans instead?

Tried making this and found that the bottom piece broke apart into a few big chunks, anyone else have that problem?

It's okay. We can tell you like whipped cream.

Did anyone try this with a buttermilk substitute? Would yogurt work instead?

The texture of this cake sheet is just amazing ! So unique ✨ Thank you Claire 🥰

Im going to try it with full fat milk and oranges to substitute !? thoughts

My grandma always uses dental floss to torte her cakes 😂

Chantily cream cake should be more popular in Amerca!!

Mmm

Good

Wow

Amazing

Yummy Yummy

Looks yummy 😋 😍 😊

Yummy

This is great

Nice

Wow..

Sweet

Nice cream

Strawberry cake is good for a dessert person.

I Cake makes me very Fat but I will be trying it fro my friends

adding this to my cook book

Your so good at baking and I love that

Creamy and yummy too

Good

Beautiful

I made the worst strawberry and cream cake this year as a birthday surprise for someone. Wait till I have a go at this next year, I hope to redeem myself :(

Nice recipe

Nice one

intros like these are helpful for when youre putting your curser over to video for previews and dont get the cat clip on loop

Do you think this would travel ok if I want to bring to a party, or would it slide around and topple over?

Nice apron. Thats more You than the Aladdin one.

This cake has a special place in my heart. I made it for my birthday in 2021 when I was deep in my love affair with Dessert Person, and determined not to have another mediocre pandemic birthday.

It was perfect if you're somebody like me who has an April birthday but wants to pretend it's summer. Also, spending an afternoon making myself a cake was an ideal way to spend my birthday. Why would I delegate the most exciting part of the day to somebody else? lol

I made this and the cake body came out amazing. Grinding the sugar into the zest made a huge difference -- the lemon flavor really came through! I will say that, as a person who loves sugar, the plain whipped cream was too bland. I think next time I will add sugar to the whip and also a little strawberry juice. My strawberries were almost overripe (store bought) and I actually think less ripe strawberries would be better if you can't eat the cake all in 1 day. By day 2, the strawberries had become a little mushy. My SO also has a preference for tart flavors, so if you're into that don't use super ripe berries. That's if you're doing store bought, if you're picking your own then do whatever you want because you cannot go wrong. I will make this again for the cake body alone because even without the cream it is a phenomenal cake. Thank you Claire!

I made this last summer for the first time and it was amazing! Initially, I wasn’t too sure about a cornmeal cake, but I actually loved it. It was so lemony and fresh! I’ve made it twice since. In this video, she didn’t use as many berries as I think the recipe calls for: mine seemed to have more. So good!

I want her apron !

Those eggs from your chickens? 😁 I was afraid you were gone when I read about BA. Found you! Haha! Amazing stuff! Keep killing it Claire! Can't wait to catch up!

Tried this out the other day! It was so good! I didn’t have many strawberries so I added blackberries too! Id definitely recommend it! :)

Have been looking for you sin Bon babe 😩

Good