I'm wondering if anyone has used oven dried strawberries in a cake batter before? I am having issues with my strawberry cake having to much moisture and "shrinking" as it cools. I have tried to adjust my liquids, paper towel dry my strawberries and tossing them in flour before adding to the batter. Sometimes this stuff works sometimes it doesn't.  The inconsistency is driving me nuts. The only thing I can figure is different batches of strawberries have different amounts of liquid in them?!?! That being said .... if I oven dry the strawberries and remove that variable, will the cake work???

I either do one of two things, make a reduction or a puree. Both of which reduces the water and concentrates the flavour. I know some people use freeze dried fruits, however, where I am from those are harder to come by and really expensive.

Thank You! I was hoping to find a way to keep the bigger pieces of strawberries in the cake. I will try this and see what happens :)