If you grew up in the ’90s or early 2000s, I know you’ve spent at least some time wondering who was actually buying those mysterious strawberry hard candies that magically appeared in every grandma’s candy dish. You know the ones: wrapped to look like tiny strawberries with that gooey, jammy center that somehow slapped every single time. Were they sold in stores? Did they simply materialize after you turned 65? The world may never know. What I do know is that this cake gives me exactly the same nostalgic joy… just with considerably more buttercream.
This gluten free strawberry cake understood the assignment and fully committed to the bit by dressing up as an actual strawberry. Could I have just made a round strawberry cake? Sure. But where’s the fun in that? Instead, she’s bright red, covered in tiny piped seeds, sporting leafy green buttercream on top, and looking suspiciously like the giant, glow-up version of that iconic strawberry candy. It’s sweet, just a little dramatic, and guaranteed to be the berry center of attention at any celebration. So if you’re ready to pick the cutest cake in the patch, let’s quit berrying the lead and get decorating. Trust me, this one’s ripe for showing off.
Lucky for you, turning a cake into an oversized strawberry is much easier than convincing people those mystery strawberry candies came from an actual strawberry. Follow along with the step-by-step video and photo tutorials below, and I’ll walk you through every swirl, seed, and leaf until you’ve got a cake that’s ripe for showing off.
Here’s everything I used for this cake:
- #2 round piping tip for the seeds, #3 round tip for the green leaves
- Red and green gel dyes
- Green candy melts
- Heart-shaped cake pan (I used two silicone ones)
- Strawberry cake recipe (below)
- Buttercream frosting (recipe below), divided up into mostly red, a little bit of white, and a little bit of green
Recipe and Instructions
Gluten free strawberry cake with protein cream cheese frosting
A lush strawberry cake decorated to look like it's namesake!
Ingredients
CAKE*1 box of gluten free yellow cake mix (I used King Arthur GF cake mix)
*1 packet of sugar free strawberry Jell-o powder (0.3 oz)
*2/3 cup fat free or skim milk
*160 g (2/3 cup) unsweetened applesauce
*4 eggs
*1.5 tsp strawberry extract
FROSTING
*1/2 cup butter, softened (can use a light butter to cut calories)
*8 ounces 1/3 the fat cream cheese at room temp
*12 ounces Lakanto powdered monkfruit
*4 ounces Quest vanilla milkshake protein powder (cuts the sweetness of the monkfruit and makes a nice, stiff, spreadable frosting; omit and use all monkfruit if desired)
*1 TBS vanilla
*1/4 cup + 2 TBS milk
*1/4 tsp citric acid if you like less sweet frosting
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 and grease two 9-inch heart-shaped pans.
- Whisk cake ingredients together in a stand mixer on low for 60 seconds before switching to medium-high for two minutes.
- Pour batter evenly into pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean from the center.
- Allow cake to cool fully before frosting.
- To make frosting, whisk cream cheese and butter for 3 minutes before adding in half the powdered monkfruit, protein powder, vanilla, and milk.
- Add in remaining monkfruit mix fully. If too stiff, add an additional TBS milk.
- Frost cooled cake according to photo or video tutorial.
- Keep cake covered and in the fridge. It is best served at room temp, so remove from fridge 30 minutes before eating. Enjoy!
MACROS
1 slice: 320 cal
49.7 c/8.5 f/11.2 p
