Strawberry Crunch Sheet Cake with Buttermilk Frosting

This pretty in pink sheet cake tastes like pure nostalgia, with a moist and tender strawberry cake, tangy buttermilk frosting, and a generous sprinkle of crunchy strawberry shortcake crumbs that add the perfect sweet and salty finishing touch.

Inspired by an ice cream truck classic, this strawberry crunch sheet cake combines all the elements you love about the frozen treat in sheet cake form: a tender strawberry buttermilk cake topped with a cloud-like buttermilk frosting and a scratch-made strawberry crunch topping.

There are few things more nostalgic than the ice cream truck, the tinkling sound of the melodic jingle that starts softly at first but gets louder as the anticipation grows. I strongly recall the breathless feeling of frantically running around the house scooping up the loose change from the couch cushions and bolting out the door before it passes you by.

The sound (and taste) of the ice cream truck is a particularly strong childhood memory for me, maybe because we grew up in an area that ice cream trucks did not frequent, so my only experiences with them were when we were visiting our grandparents in Los Angeles, making it an extra special experience.

The ice cream truck felt like a carnival on wheels, but for your tastebuds.

And of all the classic ice cream truck treats, the strawberry shortcake crunch bars are certainly one of the most memorable flavors, with a core of bold strawberry surrounded by creamy vanilla ice cream and an outer coating of crunchy strawberry shortcake crumbs. I’m usually a chocolate girl through and through, but something about that combo of creamy and crunchy, vanilla and fruit hit all the right notes.

This recipe is inspired by that nostalgic ice cream treat, with all the same flavors and textures, reimagined in a party-ready sheet cake.

Adding strawberry flavor to baked goods like cake and cookies is a notoriously difficult task, fresh fruit adversely affecting the texture far more than whatever mild fruit flavor it adds. Cooking down and reducing fresh strawberry puree can help remove some of that extra moisture, but it’s also time consuming and finicky and is still likely to give your cake a weird gummy texture (Strawberry gummy candies? Good. Gummy cake, not so much.) Even freeze dried strawberries, which are my go-to for adding strawberry flavor to frostings and fillings, can also affect the texture of baked goods.

Most strawberry cake recipes call for strawberry gelatin mix for this reason—it adds strawberry flavor (if the fake-tasting flavor could be called as such) without adversely affecting the texture.

But here’s the thing: there are already more than enough recipes for strawberry cakes using cake mixes and flavored gelatin powders, if that’s what you’re looking for. There are a number of reasons I’m not a fan of such a shortcut, for one it makes the cake not vegetarian-friendly which seems like a mean trick for those who may not be expecting it.

Instead, I wanted something more… more flavorful, more homemade, more delicious. Which meant figuring out a way to add bold, natural-tasting strawberry flavor to the cake while preserving the tender, fluffy texture and without using flavored gelatin.

Enter: Amoretti Natural Wild Strawberry Artisan Flavor, which turned out to be the perfect way to add a lovely strawberry flavor to the cake without adversely affecting the texture. It has a bright, candy-like strawberry flavor that tastes much more natural than other strawberry flavorings I’ve tried, which makes sense considering the Artisan flavors are made with real fruit. I’d describe the flavor almost like a strawberry milkshake (which, since we’re going for an ice-cream flavor-inspired cake, seemed like a perfect application for it.)

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It’s really the best of both worlds: no fake-tasting gelatin dessert mix, but also no dealing with prepping and pureeing and reducing fresh strawberries (and while I love strawberry season, the fact that you don’t need fresh fruit for this cake means it’s something that can be enjoyed all year round).

So if you want a made-from-scratch strawberry cake that is bursting with strawberry flavor, this recipe is for you.

I wish I’d known about this product earlier, I would have used it in my popular Strawberry Cake Roll recipe to add some strawberry flavor to the cake itself (instead of just the filling). Because again, the texture of the cake is key so you can’t go messing with fresh fruit and expect the same results. If you want to try for yourself I’d recommend adding 1 teaspoon of Amoretti’s Natural Wild Strawberry Artisan Flavor to the cake batter along with the food coloring (which you may not need as much of or at all since the Amoretti flavoring includes some natural color already).

You could also use it in other recipes that call for strawberry extract like my Chocolate-stuffed Strawberry Sugar Cookies (use 1 teaspoon in place of the 1/4 teaspoon of extract called for in the recipe), or add it to recipes where you want an extra kick of strawberry flavor, like this Strawberry Banana Bread. But really it’d compliment and enhance the flavor in just about any strawberry recipe (no matter if it uses fresh, frozen, or freeze-dried strawberries.)

Here’s how to make it:

The cake base is a pretty standard yellow cake recipe (though can I still call it a yellow cake if it’s pink?) with well-creamed butter and sugar, eggs, and a bit of buttermilk for added moisture and tang.

My first test of this cake used cake flour, and while the cake itself wasn’t dry necessarily, it felt like you were eating a handful of cotton balls (and, sorry Buddy, but that’s just not very appealing).

My next attempt nixed the cake flour and upped the fat, resulting in a coarser, butterier cake not unlike my favorite sour cream coffee cake (though with buttermilk in place of the sour cream). And while I tried going even denser, with a sugar cookie-like base, ultimately I decided that the contrast in textures between the crunchy crumb topping and the soft, buttery cake was the perfect match.

Remember that when making cakes using the creaming method, temperature is key—ideally all your liquid ingredients, including butter, eggs, and buttermilk, should be at room temperature, around 68-72 degrees F.

If your butter or your eggs are too cold, they won’t form a proper emulsion and you’ll end up with a curdled looking batter (which, if it happens, will still bake up into an edible cake, it’ll just be somewhat denser, with a rougher texture and uneven crumb with lots of little air pockets).

Tip: To quickly bring eggs to room temperature, soak them in a bowl of warm water for 20 to 30 minutes, changing out the water once or twice if it gets too chilled.

Cream room temperature butter, then add sugar and beat on medium-high speed for 3 to 5 minutes or until very fluffy.Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often.Add half of dry ingredients to mixing bowl, and mix on low speed until almost incorporated.Add wet ingredients: buttermilk, oil, and vanilla extract.Add 1 tablespoon of Amoretti Natural Wild Strawberry Artisan Flavor.The Amoretti flavoring adds a bit of pink color, but if want a bolder color in your final cake, add another drop or two of red food coloring.Add remaining dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated (take care not to overmix).Scrape down the beater and sides and bottom of bowl to be sure there are no streaks of dry flour remaining.Pour batter into a 13×9-inch metal cake pan that has been lined with parchment paper.Use an offset spatula to spread batter into an even layer.The cake batter is on the thick side, so you want to be sure it is spread evenly across the whole baking pan.Before baking and after baking.

The Frosting on the Cake

The frosting for this cake is a cloud-like buttermilk buttercream, with a sensuous, silky smooth texture and a balanced flavor and sweetness. The little bit of acid and tang from the buttermilk (just 1/4 cup worth) cuts the sweetness and makes for a beautifully balanced buttercream that’s not cloyingly sweet like American buttercreams can so often be.

As a personal preference I am not a fan of cream cheese buttercream, so this buttermilk frosting is a good alternative that will give you a similar tang to the cream cheese but without the obvious cream cheese flavor. Even if you’re a die-hard cream cheese frosting lover, I’d implore you to give this buttermilk frosting a try.

The technique is a little different than you might be used to, and is actually somewhat similar to what I called a ‘mock meringue’ buttercream that I used for my blood orange cupcakes, just with dairy (cream and buttermilk) in place of the orange juice as the liquid component.

But I realized that the liquid sugar mixture does not even need to be heated (which, in the case of buttermilk, heating will cause it to curdle which we very much didn’t want), which speeds up the process even more as you’re not waiting for a syrup to cool.

First you’ll mix up a liquid sugar mixture using heavy cream, buttermilk, milk powder, and powdered sugar.

The liquid dissolves the powdered sugar, resulting in a super creamy, silky buttercream that’s not at all gritty like American buttercream can sometimes be (the grit is a result of the undissolved powdered sugar because there’s simply not enough liquid present in butter to do so).

I know it might seem like there’s no way that liquid sugar is going to incorporate with the fluffy whipped butter, but somehow, it does, and the result is magical.

Sift powdered sugar into a medium sized mixing bowl.Add buttermilk, heavy cream, whole milk powder and vanilla and whisk until smooth.Cream butter for 5 to 10 minutes on medium-high speed until butter is very light and fluffy and almost pure white in color.Pour about 1/4 of liquid sugar mixture into mixing bowl with creamed butter, mixing on medium-high speed until fully incorporated before adding more.Continue adding liquid sugar, 1/4 at a time, until all the liquid sugar is incorporated and frosting is light and fluffy.If your frosting seems a bit greasy and gloppy (or if you’ve chilled it overnight and want to re-fluff it), melt a bit of buttercream and slowly pour it back into the mixing bowl with the mixer running on low.Continue to beat on medium-high speed for another 5 or more minutes until buttercream is very light, smooth, and fluffy.Reduce the mixer to low speed for a minute or two at the end to help remove excess air bubbles. You should have a super smooth, fluffy buttercream.Spread freshly whipped frosting onto cooled sheet cake (you can frost it in or out of the pan if you choose).Sprinkle strawberry shortcake crunch topping mixture over top of buttercream-frosted strawberry cake, then slice and serve.

The trick to this style of buttercream is to really whip the butter (whip it good). Seriously, beat it way longer than you would for cookies or for the cake (I’m talking a solid 7 to 10 minutes). The butter should be almost bright white in color before you start adding any sugar whatsoever.

Then, with the mixer running on low, slowly drizzle in the liquid sugar/cream mixture, about 1/4 at a time, beating it for a solid minute or two until completely incorporated before adding the next 1/4.

Once again, temperature is key here! Your butter, cream, and buttermilk all need to be at warm room temperature, 70-75 degrees ideally. If any one component is too cold, the buttercream will not be as silky and fluffy and may appear curdled/separated.

If you find your buttercream seems curdled or separated as you incorporate the liquid sugar, just keep whipping and it should come together eventually as the mixture warms.

If the frosting seems greasy and gloppy rather than fluffy, it’s probably just a little bit too cold. Try melting a little bit of the frosting for 10-15 seconds in the microwave (on 50% power), then slowly pour it back in to the rest of the buttercream with the mixer on low. Increase the speed and beat it for a few minutes more and voila! Super fluffy buttercream.

On the other side of the spectrum, if it seems soupy and overly warm, you can refrigerate the whole bowl for 15 minutes or so and then whip it some more.

The buttercream can be made ahead of time and refrigerated for up to 3 days. However, refrigerating buttercream will re-solidify that whipped fat, and you’ll lose all the fluffiness you worked so hard to achieve.

Luckily, you can ‘re-fluff’ buttercream quite easily using the same method I mentioned above, by simply melting some of it and then rewhipping that melted buttercream into the rest of the batch to bring it back up to ideal fluffing temperature.

Crunch Time

My strawberry crunch topping is also entirely scratch-made as well (surprise surprise). Most other recipes for this kind of thing call for, again, strawberry gelatin mix, but also crushed up golden Oreo cookies, which I also didn’t want to use. Instead I mixed up a milk bar-style shortcake crumb, baked until light and crispy, and then tossed with freeze dried strawberries for flavor and color.

The freeze-dried strawberries add color and flavor, tossed with a little over half the shortbread-like crumbs with finely ground freeze dried fruit to coat it in bold color and bright berry flavor. To be perfectly honest, the crunch topping was good enough I was more than tempted to eat it on its own with a spoon.

While I adore the textural contrast of the crunchy topping with the soft, tender cake and silky smooth buttercream, this recipe could be made without the crunch component if you choose. In which case I’d recommend decorating it with some fresh strawberry slices (if it happens to be strawberry season), or some cute pink sprinkles instead.

Sizing & Scaling

I went back and forth over whether to write this recipe as a 13-by-9-inch sheet cake or a smaller 8-by-8-inch square, because the recipe would really work as either one.

Ultimately I went with a 13-by-9-inch because the frosting is slightly easier to make with a larger quantity (sometimes the mixer has a hard time really mixing smaller quantities of frosting).

That said, you can easily halve the recipe for an 8-inch square pan or a 9-inch round cake pan. A 9-by-9-inch square pan would work with a half recipe as well, just with a shorter bake time to make up for the slightly thinner cake.

If you want to make a true sheet cake, make 1.5 times the recipe and bake it in a 13-by-18-inch half sheet pan (bake time will be significantly less because of the thinner size). A full double batch would need a deeper pan (2″ compared to the 1″ depth of sheet pans), which is not a very common pan size.

Ingredient Notes & Substitutions

Amoretti Natural Wild Strawberry Artisan Flavor: This is what gives the cake its strawberry flavor. Unfortunately there really isn’t any comparable substitution here. I can’t advise as to other brands of strawberry extract, which will likely have vastly different strengths, and you’ll need to use your best judgement to determine how much you might need.

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Whole Milk Powder: Whole milk powder is used in both the shortcake crumb and in the frosting for extra structure, stability, and rich dairy flavor (remember we’re trying to make the cake taste like ice cream!) While I like the added richness of whole milk powder, nonfat dry milk powder will work in a pinch; you can also use buttermilk powder in both components if you want a tangier flavor. Malted milk powder might be ok in the crumb mixture, but I think the flavor would be too overpowering in the frosting.

The milk powder could be left out of both components if absolutely necessary, it won’t cause the recipe to fail or anything, however I think it adds a lot to both crumb and frosting and would strongly suggest getting ahold of some for this recipe.

Buttermilk: I used buttermilk in the cake as well as the frosting to give it a nice tangy flavor and help contrast the sweetness. You can use plain whole milk in the cake, and all heavy cream in the frosting if you want, though the flavor won’t be as tangy.

The best buttermilk substitute is whole milk mixed with sour cream (try 3/4 cup milk to 1/4 cup sour cream), or 1 cup milk mixed with 1/4 cup buttermilk powder. I do not recommend the lemon juice method, especially in the frosting where the curdled texture would be a disaster (please, just don’t).

Freeze-dried strawberries/strawberry powder: Grind freeze-dried strawberries (NOT dried strawberries which are not the same thing) in a spice grinder or clean coffee grinder until you have a fine powder. Add a spoonful of granulated sugar if necessary to help it grind more evenly.

You can also get freeze dried strawberry powder, which is already finely ground and allows you to skip the extra step. Look for one that contains 100% freeze-dried strawberries and no sweeteners or additives.

If you can’t find freeze-dried strawberries (and aside from other kinds of freeze-dried fruit, there really is no suitable replacement), then just leave it out entirely and embrace the plain shortbread crumbs (which are delicious in their own right). You could mix in a little bit of the Amoretti Wild Strawberry Artisan Flavor to some or all of the crumb dough if you wanted a little extra strawberry flavor in the topping.

Red food coloring: While the Amoretti flavoring includes some natural coloring, it’s not quite enough to give the cake a perfectly pink hue, so I added an extra drop or two of red gel food coloring to enhance the color, but this is totally optional.