Strawberry Shortcake with Angel Food Cake

Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake is a fun twist to the traditional Strawberry Shortcake. Angel food cake is used as the base instead of biscuits, and topped with sweetened strawberries and whipped cream. The product is a light, airy, fruity dessert perfect for the Spring and Summer.

Some of my other favorite cake recipes on the blog includes Italian Ricotta Cheesecake, Molten Chocolate Lava Cake, and Skillet Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Don’t forget to check them out! 

What is Angel Food Cake?

Angel food cake is a very light, fluffy and airy white sponge cake made by whipping up lots of egg whites. It’s called “angel food” due to its lightness in texture – it is supposedly so light that even angels could eat it and fly. 🙂

Strawberry Shortcake using Angel Food Cake

Instead of using the denser cakes, I really enjoyed using angel food cake to make strawberry shortcakes because I love the lighter texture cake combined with cool whip or whipped cream and juicy fresh strawberries.

Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake also a lower carb/fat option compared to traditional strawberry shortcakes. Which means it allows me to indulge guiltlessly and have a second (or third) slice if I want to. 😉 Or at least I like to tell myself so.

Along with Peach Crisp and Banana Pudding, Angel Food Cake Strawberry Shortcake is considered to be a signature summer dessert in our household.

Equipment Needed

Here are a few things that is very handy when making Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake:

• Tube pan – cake pan with a hole in the middle. This is fairly inexpensive and I highly recommend using this. Bundt pan does not work the same way. It is very hard to remove the light, airy cake from a bundt pan.
• Food processor – this is needed to pulse the sugar mixture so that your Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake is very fine and light. Blender works too if you don’t have a food processor.
• Sifter – used to sift pulsed granulated sugar, so that the cake is light and airy!
• Stand mixer or hand mixture – electric mixers helps with beating the egg whites and making it airy and fluffy. It’s pretty hard to do this with a hand mixer.
• Cooling rack – helps with cooling off the cake.
• Egg separator – optional item but nice to have if you have trouble separating egg whites from yolks. I’ve personally never owned these and just use my two hands! 🙂

Ingredients

To make the angel food cake, you will need:

• Cake flour
• Egg whites – make sure there’s no egg yolk in the mixture because egg yolk contains fats and will weigh down the cake.
• Granulated sugar – we will be pulsing it using a food processor so it’s super fine.
• Cream of tartar – use to stabilize the egg whites
• Vanilla extract – use good quality pure vanilla extract for the best flavor
• Salt – just a tiny pinch

As for the Strawberry Shortcake part of the recipe, here’s what you need:

• Fresh strawberries – they are in season during late Spring and Summer, and taste the best then!
• Granulated sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Whipped cream or Cool whip – or make your own Homemade Whipped Cream!

How to make Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake

Step 1: Make Angel Food Cake (or buy it!)

You can get pre-made angel food cake from grocery stores so if you are in a rush – that is a very viable (and still delicious) solution. Doing so will significantly decrease the amount of time needed to make this Angel Food Strawberry Shortcake.

To make Angel Food Cake from scratch, there are a lot of details involved but do not be intimidated! I’m going to walk you through it step and step! It is easier than it seems and once you get a hand of it, there’s really not much to it. And we are only dealing with 6 ingredients.

Start by pulsing granulated sugar in the food processor until it is super fine. If a blender is all you got, feel free to use that! Note that this process takes literally a few seconds using a food processor or blender.

Set half of the fine sugar aside, and sift the other half into a medium bowl using a sifter. Then add salt and cake flour to the bowl of sifted sugar.

In a large bowl, combine the wet ingredients – egg whites, vanilla extract and cream of tartar. Whisk to combine.

Then using a sifter again, sift the remaining sugar that you set aside earlier into the wet ingredients. Continue to whisk to combine. A stand mixer or an electric hand mixer is super helpful to whisk together these ingredients.

Whisk until soft peaks are formed. Peaks should not be stiffed (which means it’s been over-whisked).

Next, bring the sugar + cake flour + salt mixture into the wet mixture, and gently fold it into the wet mixture using a spatula.

Add the flour mixture a little bit at a time and avoid dumping it all into the wet mixture in one go. Avoid over-mixing because we don’t want to remove all the air from the mixture.

Transfer mixture into an ungreased tube pan.

Send it to the oven to bake!

When it is done, cool upside down on a cooling rack for an hour, then slide a spatula between the cake and the tube pan and gently release cake from pan. Let it cool for another 30 minutes.

Step 2: Make Strawberry Mixture

Making the strawberry mixture is super simple, simply mix sliced strawberries, granulated sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl. Then refrigerate for at least an hour.

I like to do this once I’ve sent the angel food cake into the oven, this way it has time to sit in the fridge while the cake bakes and cools.

After sitting in the fridge for an hour, flavors will merge together and strawberries will be sugary sweet and delicious.

Step 3: Assemble Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake

Now here comes the fun part – putting the Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake together!

Once the cake is cool, spread the top of the cake with a thick layer of cool whip or whipped cream, then top with strawberry mixture!

You will most likely have leftover cool whip and strawberries if you follow the ingredients measurements I provide below. I highly recommend serving the leftover cool whip and strawberry mixture on the side so people can add on to their cake.

I always like my slice of Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake with extra cool whip and strawberries. 🙂

The beauty of this recipe is that you can make it from scratch by making your own angel food make or even whipped cream, or you can take the easy way out and make it super simple and grab a cake from the grocery store and just assemble it.

However you do it, the soft and airy sponge cake pairs perfectly with the juicy sweet strawberries and cool whip/whipped cream. So yum!

We all can probably agree that Strawberry Shortcake Angel Food Cake is one of those desserts that begs to be showcased.

The bright red strawberries brings gorgeous colors to a simple cake, and it just beautiful to look at, thus making it a lovely centerpiece for Mother’s Day, Easter, showers, parties, cookouts, or any Spring and Summer gathering.

Tips and Tricks

A couple things to keep in mind when making Strawberry Angel Food Cake:

• Avoid skipping the step to pulse up granulated sugar – we need the sugar super fine in order for the cake to be light and airy!
• Avoid any egg yolk in the mixture. Egg whites only! 🙂
• Do not over-mix mixture when adding flour into the wet ingredients
• Do not grease tube pan – it will make the angel food cake heavier
• Let cake cool completely before adding whipped cream and strawberry mixture.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Spring/Summer Desserts

• Individual Mini Peach Cobbler
• Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies
• Strawberry Mousse
• Mango Sticky Rice
• Rustic Blueberry Galette
• Mason Jar Banana Pudding
• S’mores Bars
• Lemon Ice Cream

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