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This Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake has soft, chocolate cake layers filled with a strawberry chocolate ganache, frosted with strawberry buttercream, and finished with chocolate ganache and chocolate covered strawberries. A chocolate covered strawberry turned into a cake!

Birthday Cakes

I love to make cakes. Creating and decorating a cake is therapeutic for me. The best is when I’m doing it for myself. There is no pressure to make it good for someone else, it’s just doing what I want to do. So, I like to make myself cake on my birthday. Maybe that’s weird. But it’s one of my favorite things to do.

Fruit and Chocolate

The other good thing about making myself a birthday cake is that I can make it with whatever flavors I’m craving. No need to worry about whether or not anyone else will like it. I’ll share it, and if they like it great, but if not, I’ll make them what they want on their birthday.

I recently had a birthday and was craving chocolate. A lot of chocolate. Some people think you can have too much chocolate, but not me. I think chocolate on top of chocolate is superb.

I also wanted strawberries to be involved since they and chocolate are made for one another, culinarily speaking. The obvious answer was to make a chocolate covered strawberry cake.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

This cake is basically a traditional chocolate covered strawberry turned in cake form. It is delicious! I served it to a few girlfriends, and it was a huge hit. Everyone took home giant pieces to “share.”

This cake isn’t difficult to make, but is a bit time consuming. Here are a few tips for making this recipe:

• For the cake, I let it cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing it. I then let the cake finish cooling on a baking rack. After it is fairly cool, I level the cake. Then, I wrap each layer in plastic wrap and place them in the freezer for at least 12 hours (do not stack the cakes until they’re frozen as they will squish each other). Frozen cakes are easier to frost.
• This strawberry buttercream uses a combination of fresh and dried strawberries. This gives a nice strawberry taste while allowing the frosting to hold up well. If you use all fresh strawberries, the frosting tends to fall apart due to the excess liquid.
• The strawberries for the top of the cake can be dipped a number of ways. My directions give instructions for a “smooth” dip. However, if you’re not picky about your chocolate being 100% smooth, and you have extra strawberry ganache you can also simply let the strawberry ganache cool and then use a food processor for a minute or two. Then, reheat the ganache in 10 second intervals in the microwave, stirring after each interval. It will not be 100% smooth, but will be pretty decent, quick, and will work for dipping the strawberries.

8/8/20 update: I previously type the recipe incorrectly. I have updated it to be correct. This cake should use 2 teaspoons of baking soda, NOT baking powder.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

This Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake has soft, chocolate cake layers filled with a strawberry chocolate ganache, frosted with strawberry buttercream, and finished with chocolate ganache and chocolate covered strawberries. A chocolate covered strawberry turned into a cake!

5 from 1 vote

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Course: Dessert

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Servings: 16 pieces

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Ingredients

Chocolate Cake

• 2  cups  sugar
• 1 3/4 cups  all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons  cornstarch
• 3/4  cup cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons  baking soda
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 2  large eggs
• 1  egg yolk
• 2  teaspoons  vanilla extract
• 1  cup  vegetable oil
• 1/2  cup  boiling water
• 1/2 cup brewed coffee very warm
• 1  cup  buttermilk

Strawberry Chocolate Ganache Filling

• 1/2  cup  fresh strawberries chopped (about 3-4 large strawberries)
• 1  tbsp  sugar
• 1  tbsp  water
• 3/4  cup  heavy whipping cream
• 6  ounces  semi-sweet chocolate

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

• 1/2  cup  unsalted butter  softened
• 1/2  cup  shortening *see note below
• 1/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  vanilla extract
• 1/3  cup  fresh strawberries chopped (about 3 large strawberries)
• ½ cup crushed freeze dried strawberries
• 4  cups  powdered sugar

Ganache and Dipped Strawberries

• 1/2  tbsp  light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup  dark chocolate chips
• 1/2  cup  heavy whipping cream
• 8 whole strawberries

Instructions

Chocolate Cake

• Preheat over to 350 degrees. Line 3, 8″ pans with parchment paper. Flour & butter sides of pans (I use baking Pam to do this).
• In the base of a stand mixer, whisk together sugar, flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in mixing bowl.
• Add eggs, egg yolk, oil, vanilla extract and buttermilk. Starting on low speed and gradually increasing speed to medium, beat until all ingredients well combined. Then, with mixer on low speed, gradually mix in boiling water and coffee until well combined.
• Divide batter evenly among the three prepared pans.
• Place cakes in the preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs.
• Let cake layers cool in pans for at least 5-10 minutes. Then, transfer to cooling rack. Let cool completely before frosting.

Strawberry Chocolate Ganache Filling

• Chop strawberries very finely with a knife, or pulse in a food processor a few times.
• In a small sauce pan over medium low heat, add chopped strawberries, 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp water. Stir constantly until sugar is dissolved and mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat.
• Place the cooked strawberry mixture along with the 6 ounces of chocolate in a heat safe bowl.
• Pour heavy whipping cream in a microwave safe bowl and heat until boiling, about 60 seconds.
• Pour heated whipping cream over chocolate strawberry mixture and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for 5 minutes.
• Remove plastic wrap and whisk until chocolate is completely melted. Let sit for at least 5 minutes before using to assemble cake.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

• Chop the strawberries very finely with a knife.
• Crush the freeze dried strawberries. You can do this by placing the strawberries in a food processor, or putting them in a Ziploc bag and crushing them with a meat mallet.
• In base of a stand mixer, use paddle attachment to beat together butter and shortening until light in color. Add in salt and vanilla and beat until well combined. Next, beat in the crushed freeze dried strawberries.
• Alternate mixing in the chopped strawberries and powdered sugar, scraping down sides as needed, until well combined and desired consistency is reached. Once combined, turn mixer on high for about 30-60 seconds. 

Assembly and Ganache Topping

• Level cakes with a cake leveler or knife. Then, use strawberry buttercream frosting to pipe a border on the outside of two of the cake layers. Fill inside of each border with half of the chocolate strawberry ganache (you may not use all of the ganache filling). Let layers sit until ganache has firmed up a bit before stacking (you can also place the layers in the freezer for a few minutes to speed up the firming).
• Stack the two filled cake layers on top of one another. Then, place the final cake layer, level side down, on top.
• Set aside about 2/3 cup of frosting for decorating the top of the cake. Then, apply a thin layer of the strawberry buttercream that will serve as the crumb layer. After this, transfer cake to refrigerator or freezer for about 10 minutes. Finally, finish frosting with remaining frosting.
• To make ganache topping, place chocolate chips and corn syrup in a heat safe bowl. Put heavy cream in a microwave safe dish and heat until boiling, about 60 seconds.
• Pour cream over chocolate chips. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 5 minutes.
• Remove plastic and whisk until smooth.
• Immediately dip about 4 of the strawberries into the ganache and set them on parchment paper to try.
• Pour remaining ganache into squeeze bottle. Squeeze ganache so that it drips down the sides of the cake. Fill top of cake with remaining ganache and smooth with offset spatula. Let chocolate firm for about 5 minutes before proceeding to next step.
• Use pasty bag to pipe strawberry buttercream into 8 circles on top of cake. Top each buttercream circle with a strawberry, alternating back and forth between dipped and undipped strawberries.

Notes

Trouble Shooting Note:

• If your ganache topping firms up while you’re working with it, place in a microwave safe bowl and put in back the microwave for 10 seconds. Stir, and if needed, microwave an additional 10 seconds.

Frosting Note:

• I prefer buttercream with half shortening and half butter as it holds up well. However, if you aren’t going to have your cake outside or in a warm room, you can make the frosting with all butter for a richer taste. 

Disclaimer: All nutritional information provided on this website is an estimate only and is not guaranteed.

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If you enjoyed this Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake, you should check out these other SugarSpicesLife recipes:

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake
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Almond Lemon Cake
Strawberry Lemon Cake

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