High Altitude Strawberry Shortcake Crunch Cake

This high altitude strawberry shortcake crunch cake has three layers of soft buttery vanilla cake, filled with fresh strawberry compote and frosted with cream cheese buttercream. The strawberry cookie crumbles pressed onto the cake give it a flavor and texture that’s reminiscent of classic strawberry shortcake ice cream bars.

You might also love these high altitude recipes for one layer mixed berry shortcake cake, strawberry chiffon sheet cake, and strawberry spoon cake.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Perfect for Summer. Since this cake is named after the iconic strawberry shortcake ice cream bars from the neighborhood ice cream truck, it’s really the perfect cake for summer.

The Best Textures. In one dessert, you get soft, fluffy cake, creamy buttercream, sweet strawberries and crunchy topping.

High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

• Strawberries. You can use either fresh or frozen strawberries for the filling. Or, you could even use store bought strawberry jam if you don’t want to make your own.
• Cake Flour. I recommend using cake flour for today’s recipe, rather than all purpose flour, for a softer, fluffier cake crumb.
• Cream Cheese + Butter. For the cream cheese frosting, a combination of both cream cheese and butter makes a more stable frosting that doesn’t slip and slide on the cake. A few tablespoons of corn starch also greatly improves its texture and stability.
• Vanilla Sandwich Cookies. For the crumbly topping, you can buy generic vanilla sandwich cookies or golden Oreos, plain shortbread cookies or just make your own cookies to crumble up.
• Freeze Dried Strawberries. You’ll need freeze dried strawberries for the topping, too. These can be easily crushed into a powder and mixed into the crumbles for more strawberry flavor.

Instructions

Strawberry Filling

• Wash, hull and dice the strawberries, then combine with the sugar in a saucepan. Let sit for 20-30 minutes until juicy.
• Bring the strawberries to a boil over medium heat, then continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the strawberries are thick and jammy. If the fruit starts to stick to the bottom of the pan, reduce the heat to medium low and continue simmering, stirring frequently, until the filling is reduced to about 1 cup.
• Refrigerate the strawberry compote until well chilled.

Cake

• Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Lightly spray two 6-inch round cake pans (preferably with a 3-inch depth) with non-stick baking spray.
• In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
• Separately, whisk together the melted butter, milk, sour cream, eggs, oil and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk until well combined.
• Divide the batter between the pans. Bake the cakes for about 30-35 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Set the pans on a cooling rack, let cool for 15 minutes, then turn the cakes out of the pans. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and cool the cakes completely before frosting and assembling the cake.

Buttercream

• In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cold cream cheese for 1 minute to smooth it out. Add the softened butter and beat for several minutes until smooth, then beat in the vanilla extract.
• In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar, meringue powder, corn starch and salt. With the mixer on low, add the sugar mixture by spoonfuls.
• Turn the speed up to medium and whip for 3-5 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl down several minutes, until light and fluffy. Turn the speed down to “stir” and mix for 1 more minute.

Crumble

• With a small food processor or a ninja, pulse the cookies (both the cookie and the filling/frosting) until coarse and crumbly. I don’t like to make the crumble too fine. Scrape the cookie crumbs into a bowl.
• Now add half of the freeze dried strawberries to the food processor, and pulse until finely ground. Save the other half of the freeze dried strawberries for decorating the top of the cake.
• Add the crushed freeze dried strawberries to the cookie crumbs and toss together to combine.

Assembly

• If needed, slice a small portion of the domed tops off the cooled cakes, using a a sharp, non-serrated knife. Then split the two cakes so that you have four layers.
• Place one of the cake layers on a cake decorating turn table or a cake plate, open crumb side facing up.
• Spread half of the chilled strawberry compote over the cake, stopping 1/2 inch from the edge.
• Place a second layer of cake on top of the strawberry filling. Spread a thin layer of the buttercream over the cake.
• Place a third layer of cake on top, and spread with the remaining half of the strawberry compote.
• Place the fourth layer of cake on top, open crumb side facing down. The layers should alternate as follows: cake, strawberry filling, cake, buttercream, cake, strawberry filling, cake.
• Frost the cake all over with a thin “crumb coat” of buttercream, then chill the cake for 30 minutes.
• Frost all over with a final coat of buttercream. You can smooth it out, but it doesn’t need to look perfect.
• Before the buttercream crusts over, press handfuls of the crumble mixture all over the cake.
• If you have extra buttercream, pipe some swirls on top of the cake using a piping bag and a large open star tip (such as tip 1M). Decorate the top with freeze dried 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

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