A quick and easy high altitude recipe for mini strawberry shortcakes, made with moist and fluffy vanilla cake, sweetened whipped cream and juicy strawberries. You’ll love how simple this strawberry shortcake recipe is, and the mini cakes are just so cute.
You might also love this strawberry shortcake layer cake with mascarpone frosting, strawberry vanilla bean ice cream, and fresh strawberry pretzel pie.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Quick and Easy. Although you have to make cake, whipped cream and strawberry sauce, each step is simple and so easy to make.
Versatile Presentation. Whether you decide to cut rounds, squares or wedges of cake, or layer everything into a trifle or parfait, this summer strawberry dessert will be beautiful and delicious.
Perfect for Spring and Summer. When the weather warms and the leaves on the trees start to appear, I start craving light and refreshing desserts with strawberries and cream. There’s nothing better!
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
Vanilla Cake
- Cake Flour. Cake flour makes a very soft, light and fluffy vanilla cake, as it contains a lower percentage of protein than all-purpose flour.
- Granulated Sugar. Adds sweetness and moisture.
- Baking Powder. Leavens the cake, making it rise.
- Coarse Kosher Salt. Balances the sweetness.
- Egg + Egg White. Eggs add structure and richness, while the extra white make it nice and fluffy.
- Whole Milk + Lemon Juice. Adds richness and acidity for a light, fluffy, tender cake crumb. This combination of milk and lemon juice is essentially the same thing as using buttermilk, which makes the best cakes.
- Melted Butter + Vegetable Oil. A combination of both butter and oil gives this vanilla cake the best flavor as well as a soft, moist texture.
- Vanilla Extract. Flavor.
Strawberries
- Strawberries. Use either fresh or frozen strawberries for the sauce.
- Granulated Sugar. When macerated with the chopped strawberries, the sugar turns syrupy, for a delicious sweet strawberry syrup to drizzle over your mini strawberry shortcakes.
Whipped Cream
- Heavy Whipping Cream. Make sure your cream is cold before beating the whipped cream.
- Powdered Sugar. Sweetens and stabilizes the whipped cream.
Recipe Variations
- Parfaits. Crumble the cooled vanilla cake, then layer the cake, strawberries and whipped cream in glass jars or parfait glasses for pretty strawberry shortcake parfaits.
- Trifle. If you have a big trifle dish, layer everything into a delicious strawberry shortcake trifle.
- Mini Cake Pan. A mini bundt pan like this USA Mini Fluted Pan and this Nordic Ware Bundt Pan would make the cutest little mini bundt cakes with no wasted cake scraps.
TIP: For today’s cake, I baked the vanilla cake batter in a 9-inch square pan and cut out rounds of cake with a biscuit cutter. If you like, use the remaining cake scraps to make a couple of strawberry shortcake parfaits. To avoid any wasted cake, just cut the cake into 9 squares instead of cutting out rounds. You can also bake the batter in a 9-inch round cake pan and just cut traditional wedges of cake to top with the strawberries and whipped cream. This Charlotte cake also makes a beautiful presentation, and is delicious with the berries and cream.
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Spray a 9-inch square baking dish with non-stick baking spray, and line the bottom of the pan with a square of parchment paper.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
- Separately, whisk together the egg, egg white, milk, lemon juice, melted butter, oil and vanilla extract.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and whisk for about 15 seconds, until the batter is smooth and well combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 28 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean, and the top of the cake springs back when gently touched.
- Cool the cake in the pan for about an hour, then turn the cake out onto a cutting board, lined with a sheet of parchment paper. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and cool completely.
- Use a round biscuit cutter to cut 8-9 rounds from the cake. Keep the cake rounds in an airtight container until ready to serve.
Strawberries
- In a bowl, stir together the chopped strawberries with the sugar. Let sit for 15-20 minutes, until the sugar is dissolved and syrupy.
- Keep refrigerated until needed.
Whipped Cream
- Pour the heavy whipping cream into a bowl and add the powdered sugar. Use an electric mixer to beat the cream until soft, fluffy peaks form.
- Keep refrigerated until needed.
Serving
- Serve the cake rounds, topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a spoonful of the strawberries.
- Refrigerate any leftover whipped cream and strawberries.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common questions with cake making, so that you can be successful in your own baking! I also suggest reading these comprehensive posts on making Perfect American Buttercream, How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost Layer Cakes and How to Use Piping Bags.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should I store leftover strawberry shortcake?
Only assemble the shortcakes that you’re going to eat right away. Keep the leftover vanilla cake in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. Keep the leftover whipped cream and strawberries in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. You’ll likely need to re-whip the cream for a few minutes since it will deflate a bit.
Will the cake batter work as cupcakes?
If you want to bake cupcakes to use for your mini strawberry shortcakes, I’d recommend using this vanilla cupcake recipe instead.
You Might Also Like
Strawberry Orange Cream Pie Strawberry Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Strawberry Shortcake Cake Strawberry Pretzel Pie
Favorite Products
Did you love today’s recipe? Please rate the recipe and let me know in the comments what you thought! Also, be sure to follow Curly Girl Kitchen on Instagram, and tag me when you try one of my recipes so I can see all your delicious creations!
Easy High Altitude Mini Strawberry Shortcakes
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Electric Mixer (Stand or Hand-Held)
Ingredients
Vanilla Cake
- 1 ½ cups + 2 tbsp cake flour, spooned and leveled
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg white (save the extra yolk for another use)
- ¾ cup whole milk
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Strawberries
- ¾ lb strawberries (fresh or frozen and thawed), washed, hulled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
Whipped Cream
- 1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
- 2 tbsp powdered sugar
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Spray a 9-inch square baking dish with non-stick baking spray, and line the bottom of the pan with a square of parchment paper.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
- Separately, whisk together the egg, egg white, milk, lemon juice, melted butter, oil and vanilla extract.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and whisk for about 15 seconds, until the batter is smooth and well combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 28 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean, and the top of the cake springs back when gently touched.
- Cool the cake in the pan for about an hour, then turn the cake out onto a cutting board, lined with a sheet of parchment paper. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and cool completely.
- Use a round biscuit cutter to cut 8-9 rounds from the cake. Keep the cake rounds in an airtight container until ready to serve.
Strawberries
- In a bowl, stir together the chopped strawberries with the sugar. Let sit for 15-20 minutes, until the sugar is dissolved and syrupy.
- Keep refrigerated until needed.
Whipped Cream
- Pour the heavy whipping cream into a bowl and add the powdered sugar. Use an electric mixer to beat the cream until soft, fluffy peaks form.
- Keep refrigerated until needed.
Serving
- Serve the cake rounds, topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a spoonful of the strawberries.
- Refrigerate any leftover whipped cream and strawberries.
I live in Florida and want to try out your recipes. Do I need to alter anything due to the elevation difference?
Lilian, please see my FAQs for information about adjusting recipes for altitude: https://curlygirlkitchen.com/baking-faqs/
I made this recipe at just under 9000 ft! I used gluten free flour and it was the BEST!
To adjust for additional altitude/ elevation (From 5280 to 8640) I added 1 extra Tb buttter,
1 extra Tb milk and took away 1 Tb sugar ! Perfection! Gluten free shortcake at 9000 ft. I’m so happy!
Thank you!!!!❤️