The Ultimate Gluten-Free Strawberry Cake

The ultimate Strawberry shortcake plus it's gluten-free as well! This recipe consists of fresh strawberries that is sandwiched between the cake layers with fresh cream cheese frosting. This cake is ideal for someone's birthday or any other celebration. You may also be free to change the decoration slightly if you wish or follow my example within the photos. So are you ready to bake the ultimate gluten-free strawberry cake? Give it try and you never know it might be your best cake yet for all you home bakers. For more of my recipes visit www.bethanybakes.com and you will be in for a treat.

Preparation Times

Preparation: 20 minutes

Time in the oven: 15-20 minutes

Icing preparation: 10 minutes

Frosting and decorating: 1 hour and 10 minutes+

Total Time: 2 hours+

Ingredients

For the sponge

110g of butter(soft)

2 tbsp of rose water

1 1/2 cups of caster sugar

2 3/4 cups of gluten-free flour

4tsp of gluten-free baking powder

1sp of salt

1 1/2 cups of milk

2 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice (for the buttermilk)

3 large eggs

For the Frosting (layering the cake)

100g of fresh raspberries

75g of butter (soft)

100g of cream cheese

300g of icing sugar

1/2 of lemon juice

For the Frosting (decorating)

200g of cream cheese

750g of icing sugar

125g of butter (soft)

Strawberries (for decorating)

Raspberries (for decorating)

Equipment

Three 20cm (8in) diameter sandwich tins

Baking paper

Palette knife

Palette knife

Cake smoother

Cake board

Piping bag

The baking begins!

The sponge

1. First make the buttermilk. In a medium-sized bowl, place the milk in with freshly squeezed lemon juice and gently stir in both ingredients. Leave to rest for 30 minutes or until medium to large lumps are within the buttermilk.

2. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Line the baking paper with the sandwich cake tins and grease the sides of the tins with a thin coat of butter.

3. In a medium-sized bowl combine all the dry ingredients with the butter in an electric mixer or handheld whisk until the mixture begins to form a crumb-like consistency. Mix the buttermilk and eggs in a measuring jug then add to the dry mixture along with the rosewater . Stir in all ingredients until a cake batter forms.

4. Evenly disperse the cake batter into the three sandwich cake tins. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the middle of each cake is fully baked by using a toothpick or skewer.

For the frosting

1. Cream 1/3 of the butter with 1/4 of the icing sugar until the frosting begins to form. Next, add 1/3 of the cream cheese to the frosting with 1/2 the juice of the lemon.

2. Repeat this step with the remainder of the butter, icing sugar, lemon juice, and cream cheese until the icing is thick and smooth. If the frosting is not thick enough just add some more icing sugar.

Assembling and decorating

1. Chop the strawberries in half.

2. Add a small amount of the frosting in the middle the cake board then place the first cake layer onto the cake board (this is to prevent the cake from moving whilst decorating). Evenly coat the top of the cake layer with icing then evenly place half of the fresh strawberries on top of the icing. Place the second layer on top. Repeat this step for the final cake layer.

3. Once your layers are sandwiched together, spread a thin layer of frosting all around the cake using the palette knife. This first coat of frosting is called the crumb coat so all the crumbs of the cake will be strained to this layer. Place the cake in the fridge once fully covered with frosting for 30 minutes so the crumb coat layer can set.

4. Whilst the Crumb coat is setting, repeat the steps for making the frosting for masking the cake once the crumb coat layer is set.

5. After 30 minutes, take out the cake from the fridge and begin to layer the second coat of frosting (masking) using the palette knife. Once the cake is fully covered, smooth down the sides and top of the cake with the cake smoother. Ensure to leave some frosting for the piping on the top whilst masking the cake.

6. Place the remainder of the frosting into the piping bag. Using the star tip nozzle pipe around the edges of the cake. Finish off the cake with the fresh berries on top and add a few colorful sprinkles on top to complete the cake design.