I’ve loved making and eating chocolate-covered strawberries since I was a kid. I never viewed them as a particularly romantic food item growing up, simply because I used to make them all the time and eat them by myself—the idea of sharing them never really occurred to me.
This dessert takes that idea to the next level, with a chocolate cake, topped with a strawberry cream cheese frosting, topped with chocolate-covered summer strawberries and chocolate shavings.
For the chocolate covered strawberries themselves, what I love most about them is that you can make them in 15 minutes from start to finish with only three ingredients: heavy cream, chocolate chips, and ripe strawberries.
Chocolate Cake with Chocolate-Covered Summer Strawberries
I’ve loved making and eating chocolate-covered strawberries since I was a kid. I never viewed them as a particularly romantic food item growing up, simply because I used to make them all the time and eat them by myself—the idea of sharing them never really occurred to me. This dessert takes that idea to the next level, with a chocolate cake, topped with a strawberry cream cheese frosting, topped with chocolate-covered summer strawberries and chocolate shavings. For the chocolate covered strawberries themselves, what I love most about them is that you can make them in 15 minutes from start to finish with only three ingredients: heavy cream, chocolate chips, and ripe strawberries.
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Cake:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 Tbsp vanilla instant pudding mix
- 2 tsp baking soda
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp Kosher salt
- 3 whole eggs
- 1.75 cups white granulated sugar
- 1 cup whole milk
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 Tbsp salted butter, (melted)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
For the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, (softened)
- 8 oz (1 package) Philadelphia cream cheese, (softened)
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp Kosher salt
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- Juice squeezed from 4 strawberries
For the Chocolate-Covered Strawberries:
- 8 oz. dark chocolate chips
- ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
- ¼ tsp Kosher salt
- 16 beautiful and ripe summer strawberries
- 2 Tbsp dark chocolate shavings, (as garnish)
Instructions
For the Chocolate Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325F.
- Give three eight-inch round cake pans a coating of butter or vegetable oil.
- Then, cover the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper, and lightly oil the parchment paper as well.
- Set those pans aside for now.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, vanilla instant pudding mix, baking soda, cocoa powder, baking powder, and Kosher salt until evenly distributed.
- In a large mixing bowl, use a hand mixer or stand mixer to beat the whole eggs, white granulated sugar, whole milk, buttermilk, vegetable oil, melted butter, and vanilla extract until frothy and relatively homogenous.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and use a hand mixer to blend the ingredients until they are smooth.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter across the three cake pans that you prepared earlier.
- Bake at 325F for roughly 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- When the cakes are fully baked, remove them from the oven, and set them aside at room temperature to cool down.
- When the pans have cooled for about 20 minutes, carefully invert them onto wire racks to allow them to completely cool down for an additional 60 minutes.
For the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:
- In a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, mix together the softened butter with the cream cheese, powdered sugar, Kosher salt, vanilla extract, and strawberry juice.
- Continue to whisk the mixture until you arrive at your desired consistency.
- When your chocolate cakes from earlier have cooled down completely, assemble the cake, applying a thin layer of frosting between each of the layers, and finishing the outside with a thin layer on the top and sides of the cake.
- *You can add some additional layers of thinly-sliced strawberries between the layers of cake, if desired.
- Set the cake in the refrigerator to cool down while you prepare the chocolate-covered strawberries.
For the Chocolate-Covered Strawberries:
- Melt the dark chocolate chips in a small sauce pot on low heat, stirring frequently.
- *Make sure your sauce pot and rubber spatula you are using to stir are completely dry, as any added water at this stage will make the chocolate seize up, and become unpleasant to work with and look at.
- When the chocolate is mostly melted, slowly start adding the heavy whipping cream, and continue to add until the chocolate reaches a smooth consistency.
- Add the Kosher salt, and remove from the heat.
- Dip each of the strawberries in the chocolate sauce, and reserve on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper.
- When all of the strawberries have been dipped, place them in the fridge to cool down.
- When the chocolate on the strawberries has set, carefully remove them from the parchment paper and arrange them on the top of the cake.
- Keep the cake cool until serving.
- When ready to serve, garnish the top of the cake with a sprinkle of some dark chocolate shavings, and cut the cake into slices.
- *If you wipe off the blade of your slicing knife in between slices, your final cake slices will have a much cleaner look to them.
Notes
If you are simply looking to make chocolate-covered strawberries, simply follow that section of the recipe—they are really easy to make and can be stored in the fridge for a few hours before eating them.
If you store this cake in the fridge for too long after making it, the strawberries will begin to drain out some of their juices, so make sure you eat this within a few days of making it!
