Strawberry Muffin Cake

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After much love for my blueberry muffin cake, I thought it was time to make a strawberry version. This strawberry muffin cake is so moist and tender, full of strawberries and topped with a crispy streusel. Serve it with fresh whipped cream and fresh sliced strawberries or just how it is.

Why you’ll love this strawberry muffin cake:

What’s not to love? Cake is always a good idea especially when

It’s moist and packed full of strawberries!
Uses melted butter so no mixer required and comes together in 10 minutes (minus bake time).
The streusel on top is just glorious and makes for a beautiful contrast.

If you like this recipe, you’ll love my muffin version. If you’re looking for more strawberry recipes, I think you’ll enjoy my strawberry blueberry pie .

If you want, you could turn any of my muffin recipes into a cake. They all follow a similar recipe so you can just follow them and bake it in the spring form pan like I baked this one. I really want to turn my Vanilla muffins into a lemon version next!

I also have banana bread muffins, carrot cake muffins, or my latest chocolate muffins!

strawberry muffin cake topped with strawberry slices

Ingredients

Full list of ingredients is in the recipe card but I just wanted to highlight a few things.

Flour: I use all purpose flour in most of my recipes and I HIGHLY recommend using a digital scale, as flour is so often over measured.
Baking Powder: In my muffin recipes, I use both baking soda and baking powder but I cut out the baking soda for the cake because we really don’t need a giant muffin top here.
Sugar: I use granulated sugar in the cake and the streusel. Although it seems like a lot, it contributes to much of the texture.
Butter: I like to use salted butter for the cake and the streusel but unsalted also works, just add ¼ tsp of extra salt.
Eggs: I use room temperature, large eggs. Place them in hot water for a few minutes if they’re cold.
Greek Yogurt/Milk/Cream: I found my favorite combination to be half greek yogurt and half heavy whipping cream. I know it’s weird, most people don’t use cream in muffins or cake but I promise it’s so good.
- If you don’t want to use cream and you want to use milk, I would sub the greek yogurt for sour cream. The higher fat content helps keep this cake more tender and moist. That said, you can also do greek yogurt and milk for a slightly healthier option. It’ll be good, especially right away but might just dry out a little quicker.
Vanilla: whatever vanilla you have on hand is fine. I used vanilla bean paste but extract works fine too.
Strawberries: I used very ripe fresh strawberries and diced them small. I haven’t tried frozen strawberries but I do use frozen blueberries in my blueberry version and haven’t had any issues.

slice of strawberry muffin cake with a bite taken out

Step-by-Step Instructions

Make the streusel by mixing together the butter, sugar and flour until it’s chunky. Don’t over-mix. Set aside.
Whisk together the melted butter and sugar: let the butter cool a little before combining with the sugar.
Whisk in the eggs: this is important; whisk in one egg at a time for about 30 seconds, until it’s completely combined, pale and fluffy. Then add another egg, etc.
Add the dairy: whisk in the greek yogurt and vanilla until it’s smooth, then add the room temperature cream and whisk until it’s smooth.
Add the dry ingredients: whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into the wet ingredients until they’re completely combined.
Toss the strawberries with the cornstarch and then fold it into the batter gently, just until it’s almost evenly distributed.
Line and grease a springform pan (or a regular cake pan) and spread the strawberry muffin cake batter into the pan and top with streusel.
Bake at 350F (177C) convection for about 45 minutes.

add the eggs, one at a time and whisk well between each one — melted butter mixed with sugar

Frequently Asked Questions

How to customize this cake?

You could add ½ cup of white chocolate chips, or even rub the zest of a lemon with the sugar before beginning the recipe.
You could also sub the strawberries for raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, mixed berries, diced peaches, etc.

Can I add a glaze?

You can if you want to! I would just combine like ½ cup of powdered sugar with 1 Tbsp of milk and 1 tsp of vanilla extract/vanilla bean paste. Slowly add more powdered sugar if it’s too runny.
You could also just whip some cream with a little sugar and add some fresh sliced strawberries on top.

How to know when it’s done baking?

Because the top is crispy, you can’t really press down on it to see if it springs back like the rest of my cakes so I just insert a knife or a toothpick in the center and it comes out with a few moist crumbs, then it’s done. I lean towards giving it an extra 5 minutes if you’re skeptical of whether or not it’s done baking.

Different size pans to bake this in

I used a 9 inch springform pan and baked it for 55-60 minutes. You could make it shorter and use a 10 inch springform pan but you’ll need to bake it for about 45-50 minutes.
A regular 9 or 10 inch cake pan, round or square would work fine too, just make sure to line it well with an overhang so you can easily remove the cake from the pan

strawberry muffin cake sliced and topped with powdered sugar and strawberry slices

How to store strawberry muffin cake

I just cover it with a cake dome for 1-2 days, but if it’s longer you can refrigerate it for up to a week, however cake does kind of dry out in the fridge so I recommend freezing it.

I like to slice it and wrap each slice in plastic wrap, then place them in a freezer bag and that way you can unfreeze one slice at a time. You could also wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap and then foil before freezing or place slices in an airtight container.

Bring back to room temperature before serving.

Thanks so much for reading today’s post, if you have any questions just comment down below. If you make this strawberry muffin cake, I would love it if you left me a review or a star rating!

As always, have a blessed day and happy baking!

Love, B