Our strawberry chocolate cake combines moist, tender chocolate cake with a sweet strawberry filling and strawberry whipped cream frosting. Even better, it’s as easy to make as it is delicious.
There’s an endless variety of cake recipes out there, but when we think of this classic dessert, chocolate is always at the top of our list.
From the time-honored classic to variations like chocolate mint fudge cake, there’s so much you can do with a chocolate cake. We love it in all forms, especially when you combine it with fruit to make desserts like chocolate raspberry bars.
This cake combines a homemade chocolate cake with a homemade strawberry filling and strawberry whipped cream frosting for a deeply chocolaty, sweet, and berry-licious flavor everyone will love.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Moist and Tender: This cake is exceptionally moist and tender, with a perfect crumb.
- Deep Chocolate Flavor: This cake has the deepest, richest chocolate flavor you’ll ever enjoy.
- Tons of Strawberry Flavor: The strawberry filling between the cake layers and the strawberry frosting add so much strawberry flavor, perfectly complementing the chocolate.
- Basic Ingredients: Every part of this recipe uses common ingredients found in any kitchen or grocery store.
- Super Easy: The cake, filling, and frosting are all incredibly simple to make and beginner-friendly.
- Versatile: This cake is easy enough for a weeknight dinner and pretty enough for special occasions.
Key Ingredients
You’ll find a full list of ingredients and their exact amounts in the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
- Cocoa Powder and Chocolate Chips: Unsweetened cocoa powder and chocolate chips give the cake a super-deep chocolate flavor.
- Instant Coffee: Instant coffee adds a bold flavor layer that accentuates the chocolate flavor.
- Chocolate Sauce: A thin layer of chocolate sauce between the cakes adds more chocolate flavor.
- Vegetable Oil and Oat Milk: Using vegetable oil instead of butter and adding oat milk makes the cake even more tender.
- Strawberries: Fresh strawberries are the base for the sweet strawberry filling.
- Heavy Cream: Combining heavy cream and a little strawberry filling forms the base for the light, fluffy strawberry whipped cream frosting.
Variations
- Semi-Homemade: Use your favorite chocolate cake mix for a faster, semi-homemade version.
- Chocolate Chips: We used semi-sweet chocolate chips, but milk or dark chocolate chips will also work. Each variety adds a subtle flavor change to the cake.
- Vegetable Oil: Any neutral oil will work in place of vegetable oil.
- Strawberries: You can use fresh or frozen strawberries for this recipe. If you use frozen berries, omit the water.
- Other Berries: Use your favorite berries to create different berry chocolate cakes. They’re all delicious!
- Poke Cake: Bake the cake batter in a sheet pan, then use the filling as the poke cake liquid. Then, frost with the whipped cream frosting. Make extra filling if you plan to make it in this way.
How to Make Strawberry Chocolate Cake
Step 1: Boil the filling ingredients over medium heat until thickened. Then, cool, puree, and strain. Set aside.
Step 2: Whisk the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Then, stir in the wet ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Step 3: Pour in the boiling water and stir until combined. Then, divide the batter evenly between 2 prepared 9-inch cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Step 4: When the cakes have cooled, beat the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Then, gradually beat in the powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in the strawberry filling until combined.
Step 5: Spread the chocolate sauce over the bottom cake layer, then spread half the strawberry filling over it.
Step 6: Add a layer of whipped cream and top with the second cake layer. Then, frost the outside of the cake with the rest of the whipped cream.
Expert Tips
- Be sure your baking soda is fresh. Stale baking soda will make a thin, dense cake.
- Use high-quality cocoa powder and chocolate sauce for the best cake flavor.
- To ensure the best cake texture, your water should be at a full boil before adding it to the other batter ingredients.
- Unlike other cake batters, it’s important to mix your batter until well combined after adding the boiling water.
- Stop whipping your cream as soon as stiff peaks form. Otherwise, you’ll collapse its structure.
- Fully cool your cake before frosting; otherwise, the frosting will thin and slide off.
Strawberry Chocolate Cake FAQs
Refrigerate this cake for up to 5 days in a closed container.
The usual culprit for any dry cake is using too much flour. Avoid this by loosely spooning the flour into your measuring cup and leveling it off with a knife. This avoids compacting the flour.
Whipped cream frosting generally collapses from overbeating. When it comes to whipped cream, more is definitely not more. Stop whipping the cream as soon as stiff peaks form, or it will collapse.
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Strawberry Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
Strawberry Filling
- 2 pounds strawberries, hulls removed
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Chocolate Cake
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon instant coffee
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup oat milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup boiling water
- ¾ cup semi sweet chocolate morsels
- 2 tablespoon Ghirardelli chocolate sauce
Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 ¼ cup powdered sugar
- 1 ¼ cups strawberry filling
Instructions
Strawberry Filling
- Bring everything to a boil over medium heat.
- Once boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer until thick, approximately 20 minutes.
- Let cool, puree, and strain any remaining seeds. Set aside to cool.
Chocolate Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two 9 inch round cake pans with parchment paper and lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together.
- Add the wet ingredients: oil, eggs, milk and vanilla. Stir in chocolate chips until combined.
- Carefully pour boiling water into cake batter and stir until combined.
- Split cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting
- In a medium bowl, beat heavy cream until peaks just start to form.
- Gradually add the powdered sugar into the bowl, a ¼ at a time, and beat again after each addition until stiff peaks form.
- Fold in 1 ¼ cups of the strawberry filling and gently stir until combined, making sure to reserve ½ cup for the filling between the layers.
Assemble the Cake
- Spread the Ghirardelli chocolate sauce over the bottom cake layer, followed by a layer of the strawberry filling.
- Next, add the whipped cream and then place the second cake layer on top.
- Frost the cake with the remaining strawberry whipped cream frosting, as desired.
- Place sliced strawberries along the sides of the cake, and enjoy.
Notes
- Be sure your baking soda is fresh. Stale baking soda will make a thin, dense cake.
- Use high-quality cocoa powder and chocolate sauce for the best cake flavor.
- To ensure the best cake texture, your water should be at a full boil before adding it to the other batter ingredients.
- Unlike other cake batters, it’s important to mix your batter until well combined after adding the boiling water.
- Stop whipping your cream as soon as stiff peaks form. Otherwise, you’ll collapse its structure.
- Fully cool your cake before frosting; otherwise, the frosting will thin and slide off.
- Might have extra strawberry filling, and can use that to spread on toast.
This was so good! I used frozen berries because they’re out of season, and it worked perfectly. I just left out the water like you suggested and cooked it just a little longer.
This is such a tasty cake. I love the chocolate and strawberry flavors, and it’s so moist and tender.