Moist Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Filling (+ cream cheese frosting)

A deliciously moist vanilla cake made from scratch with a homemade strawberry filling all covered in a rich cream cheese frosting.

This has become one of my favorite cakes now. It has THE best buttery vanilla cake as the base and is filled with a cooked strawberry filling.

Adding whipped cream cheese buttercream frosting just adds the perfect finishing touch and makes this cake taste like strawberries and cream heaven.

This cake looks impressive and with everything made from scratch, it tastes just as amazing. It’s not overly involved, but you do want to start on the filling either a couple of hours before or the day before you plan to assemble the cake.

The soft and moist texture of the vanilla cake is just amazing and the frosting just almost melts in your mouth. All that in combination with the tart and sweet strawberry filling, just makes this cake heavenly.

This delectable layer cake is perfect for birthdays and weddings or just any time you get a craving for yummy vanilla cake with strawberries. This recipe will definitely be a hit every time you serve it.

The strawberry cake filling can also be used as a filling for cupcakes, or other layer cakes like chocolate or white cake.

Of course, if you want to use fresh strawberries, you can do that too.

Sugar and lemon juice: You’ll need sugar to sweeten everything up and lemon juice just adds a splash of flavor.

Cornstarch and water: This is what will thicken up the strawberry filling, so you don’t want to skip this.

Baking soda and powder: You’ll need both for this recipe. Don’t substitute them out though as they’re not exactly the same thing and they don’t sub equally.

Oil, sour cream and milk: These three things will add a lot of moisture to the cake, especially the sour cream.

Butter: There’s nothing better than a rich buttery cake and this recipe calls for 1 full cup of butter…yum. This will make the cake rich, buttery and moist.

Sugar: This, of course, is what makes a cake sweet, but it also gives the cake moisture. Try not to skimp on this ingredient.

Eggs: You’ll definitely need eggs to solidify everything and give it some lift.

Confectioner’s sugar: This will give the frosting its sweetness and thicken it up.

Vanilla and salt: Vanilla just gives a good flavor to anything and salt cuts the sweetness a little.

(Make sure to check out the FAQ section below in this post for ingredient and substitution questions.)

First, add the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice to a large saucepan and heat on medium and bring to a simmer. Let this simmer for several minutes until the strawberries break down a little and the mixture thickens up.

You’ll want to stir frequently and you may also use a potato masher to mash up the strawberries a bit while it’s heating.

Next, mix the warm water and cornstarch in a measuring cup until it’s smooth, then pour into the strawberry mixture. Stir and let the mixture lightly simmer for about a minute until it thickens.

You can add some red food coloring at this point to make the filling a stronger or brighter red color.

Next, allow the filling to cool to room temperature, then cover it and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Next, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt to a medium-sized mixing bowl. Whisk well and set aside.

In another medium-sized bowl, add the oil, sour cream, milk, and vanilla extract. Whisk well and set aside.

Now in a large mixing bowl, add the room-temperature butter and the sugar and mix with an electric mixer on medium-high for several minutes until it’s light and fluffy.

Next, add the eggs one at a time, and mix on low-medium only until just combined after adding each egg.

After the eggs are added, alternately add in the dry mixture and the liquid mixture to the butter mixture, starting and ending with the dry mixture.

Always make sure not to mix the batter too long.

Next, add the batter to the two prepared, 8-inch round cake pans and smooth the batter evenly.

Bake the cake layers at 325 degrees F on the middle rack for approximately 45-50 minutes.

Remove the cake layers from the oven and place them on a wire rack, still inside the pans, for about 15 minutes.

Next, turn the cake layers out of the pans and set them onto the cooling racks and allow them to cool completely before adding filling and frosting.

Next, add the confectioner’s sugar, vanilla and salt and mix until smooth.

Now add milk if needed to reach desired consistency and mix well.

Finally, whip the buttercream for several minutes on medium-high until fluffy.

Next level the tops of the cake layers if necessary.

Now add a layer of the cake to a cake plate, then add a bit of the cream cheese frosting.

Pipe an icing dam just around the inside of the cake layer to keep the strawberry filling from squishing out.

Next, add ⅔ of the strawberry filling to the cake layer inside of the icing dam.

Now add the last layer of cake.

Then cover the entire cake with the remaining frosting.

At this point, you can add the remaining strawberry filling to the top of the cake, or leave the cake covered in just the frosting.

Serve closer to room temperature so that the cake is nice and soft, but store chilled since it’s covered in cream cheese frosting.

(Remember that the instructions will also be in the recipe card below.)

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***I write recipes using volume (cups) measurements because here in the U.S., this is what people are used to seeing and using. For weight in metric measurements, click the ‘metric’ button under the ingredients in the recipe card. The weights are converted by a program, not me, and it’s a best guess. Please note that because I develop recipes using ‘cups’ I can’t guarantee that weighing the ingredients will produce the exact same results.

Recipe: