This no-bake strawberry filled angel food cake is fluffy, creamy, cold, and just dramatic enough to make people think you put in significantly more effort than you actually did. We love a low-labor illusion.
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🥰 Is this vintage strawberry dessert recipe for you?
- You want a dessert that looks fancy enough for company but requires approximately the effort of mild gossip.
- You need something cool, creamy, and summery that doesn't involve turning your kitchen into a sauna.
- You love strawberry shortcake but wish it had more drama and significantly more frosting.
- You're feeding a crowd and would prefer not to spend all day making individual desserts like some kind of martyr.
- You appreciate a recipe that can be made ahead, chilled, and ignored until it's time to collect compliments.
🧾 Ingredients you'll need for this strawberry filled angel food cake
This angel food cake with strawberry filling recipe keeps the ingredient list short and the drama low. Grab a bakery angel food cake, use a boxed mix, or make one from scratch if you're in your domestic goddess era.
- Baked angel food cake. Store-bought, boxed, or homemade. We respect effort, but we also live for shortcuts.
- Powdered sugar. For sweetness and for lightly dusting every surface in your kitchen like dessert-related fallout.
- Heavy cream. Whips into fluffy clouds of poor decision-making and happiness. You can substitute with 8 cups Cool Whip.
- Cream cheese: Gives the frosting its tangy backbone and keeps things from tasting like straight sugar paste.
- Strawberries: Fresh and juicy. The prettier they are, the more obnoxiously impressive the finished cake looks.
- Butter: Softened, because trying to frost with cold butter is a path to rage.
- Vanilla: Adds warmth and depth so the whole thing tastes like you know what you're doing.
Download the free printable kitchen cheat sheet for more tips, storage, faqs, and variations.
📖 Recipe
Strawberry Angel Food Cake
Print Pin Recipe Rate RecipeIngredients
Cake
- 1 angel food cake, homemade, purchased, or a mix. Reserve cubes after removing from cake.
- 3 cups strawberries, cleaned and quartered - fresh berries are best.
- 1 pint heavy cream, 2 cups, whipped
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
Frosting
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 3 ½ cups powdered sugar, 1 pound
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup butter, room temperature
Instructions
Cake
- Start with a finished angel food cake.
- Cut the top off of the cake. It's easiest if you use a long, serrated knife. Be sure to keep it level when you cut.
- Cut about ¾ to 1 inch down from the top and remove the insides.
- Set the top aside. Cut along the inside of the cake near the center hole. Use a shorter serrated knife and cut around the entire circle, leaving about a ¾ inch width of cake.
- Cut around the outside edge of the cake, again leaving a ¾ inch "wall" of cake.
- Remove the insides carefully, cutting it in cubes. Make sure you leave about ¾ inches of cake at the bottom. Reserve what you remove and set it aside.
- With an electric mixer whip the heavy cream and add the powdered sugar to taste.
- Cut the strawberries into quarters if you haven't already.
- Gently combine 2 cups of whipped cream and the strawberries.
- Fold until well mixed.
- Add the cake cubes that you removed to the strawberries and whipped cream.
- Fold in gently but thoroughly.
- Spoon the strawberry mixture into the inside of the hollowed out angel food cake.
- Fill to the top and mound the filling up slightly.
- Replace the top.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Beat all ingredients together until the mixture is smooth and there are no lumps.
- If the frosting is too stiff, you can add a little bit of cream to thin it out.
- With an offset spatula, frost the angel food cake, covering it completely.
- Garnish with cut strawberries at the base if desired.
- Chill for 3 hours or overnight.
- When serving, use a long serrated knife to slice the cake.
Notes
- Keep this refrigerated!
- Raspberries work well in place of strawberries.
- 8 cups of Cool Whip can be substituted for the whipped cream. This is especially good if the cake will be sitting out for any length of time - the Cool Whip holds up better in summer heat.
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.
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🔪 How to make this easy no-bake dessert
Despite looking like something served at a bridal shower hosted by a woman named Muffy, this cake is surprisingly easy to make.
- Slice the top off and hollow out the angel food cake. Carve out the center, leaving enough cake around the edges so the whole thing doesn't collapse like a poorly supervised family secret. You'll need to leave a 1-inch border when you create the channel in the cake. Don't cut through the bottom!
- Whip the cream. Beat until fluffy and cloud-like, but stop before it turns into butter and ruins everybody's afternoon.
- Fold in the berries. Gently stir the strawberries into the whipped cream. We are folding here, not fighting.
- Fill the cake and frost as directed. Pile the filling into the hollowed-out cake, replace the top, and frost the whole thing like you're preparing for judgment from women named Carol.
😱 What can go wrong (and how to fix it)
🍓 The cake collapses while you're hollowing it out
You carved too aggressively and left the walls too thin. This is dessert, not an archaeological dig. Leave about an inch of cake all around for support.
🍓 The filling turns watery
Your strawberries were too wet or too ripe. Pat them dry and avoid berries that look like they've been through something emotionally devastating.
🍓 The whipped cream won't thicken
Your cream wasn't cold enough. Heavy cream likes to be whipped while frigid and judgmental.
🍓 The frosting is lumpy
Your cream cheese or butter was too cold. Room temp ingredients make smooth frosting. Cold ingredients make rage.
🍓 Slices fall apart when serving
The cake needs more chill time. Let it refrigerate long enough to firm up before cutting, or you'll be serving delicious rubble.
👩🍳 FAQs
Have other questions? Ask me in the comments!
No. Frozen berries get too watery when they thaw and the filling will be runny.
You can substitute 8 cups of Cool Whip for the whipped cream if you want. This is a better option if the cake will be sitting out in the heat for a long period of time in the summer, like at an outdoor picnic. Cool Whip doesn't break down as quickly as whipped cream.
Cutting the whole cake in pieces and layering it with the creamy filling in a trifle dish works great. Double the filling and use extra strawberries to slice and layer, too. You won't need the frosting.
Because the center of the angel food cake is hollowed out and filled before frosting, creating a "tunnel" of strawberries and cream inside.
📚 More strawberry recipes you'll love
If strawberry season has you buying berries like a woman possessed, I've got other ways to use them before they go soft in the crisper and begin their inevitable descent into strawberry jam. My strawberry shortcake crunch ice cream cake is cold, creamy, and dangerously close to weaponized nostalgia, while the strawberry chantilly cake feels a little more polished and fancy, like it owns matching serving platters and says things like "darling, just a sliver."
If you're after something easier and a touch more old-school, the strawberry sheet cake is pure potluck royalty, and strawberry punchbowl cake remains the undisputed champion of church-basement desserts assembled by women who know everyone's business. Want a little tartness with your sweet? My strawberry rhubarb pie brings just enough sharpness to keep the whole affair from tasting like pink sugar in a wig.
You're going to be making this easy strawberry dessert from Mother's Day through Labor Day anyway, so you might as well test-drive it this weekend and make sure your frosting-to-cake ratio is morally correct.
Patricia @ Grab a Plate says
You're mom had a fabulous idea! This is so fun, and it looks and sounds so delicious, and yes, fancy! Love it!
Taylor says
What a great way to dress up an angel food cake! Looks delicious!
Florian @ContentednessCooking says
This looks amazing! Perfect for spring!
Jocelyn (Grandbaby cakes) says
This looks incredible!
Marye Audet says
Thank you!
Dorothy at Shockingly Delicious says
"You either like cream cheese or you're wrong." Ha ha, cracked me up! Cake looks incredible!
Marye Audet says
Thank you so much!