Hi everyone,
I'm doing a cake for a client who wants fresh strawberries between the layers of his cake. I've done this in a cake before but once the strawberries touched the butter cream it produced all kinds of juice that seeped out the bottom. Does anyone have any tips for putting fresh strawberry slices between two vanilla cakes filled with strawberry butter cream that will also be riding in a car about two hours?

I make fresh strawberry cakes all the time with no probs with both buttercream & whipped cream. Are you adding anything to the berries before you fill? Like sugar or simple syrup. Not sure why your berries would be juicy otherwise. I just layer the buttercream or whipped cream then slice the berries directly on top of that and top with more filling. I've never had any leakage. HTH and good luck.

When I use fresh strawberries, after slicing, I let them sit on papertowels for a little while to let any of the excess juices get absorbed. They are still so fresh and tasty without making everything "wet and stained".

Thanks guys! I don't know what I did last time to make that happen. I had the cake layer, then a layer of white chocolate ganache, then the strawberries, then a little more ganache, then the top cake layer, then the whole thing was covered in MMF. I had to lay paper towels all around the edge of the cake to soak up the juices! I'm sure my cake will be fine, I just thought I'd ask before I assemble it. I'll try that idea of setting them out on a paper towel first.

Thanks again!

I'm glad you posted this. I was thinking about throwing strawberries in my next creation!

Put the fresh sliced strawberries on top of a cake layer instead of any cream or icing. Strawberries will definitely produce juice and if you put it on top of a cake layer, the cake will help absorb the water a bit better. And the juice will keep your cake moist!!

I saw instructions that said not to wash in water but rub on a towel to clean so the water doesn't make the strawberries soggy. Then she made the dam around the cake and filled with bavarian cream mixed with whipped cream (or pastry pride non-dairy cream) and layed strawberries on the cream, followed by a topping of more cream, then the next cake layer...

I agree that you need to have the strawberries in direct contact with the cake, then the cake absorbs the extra juice and stays moist, and the berries dont weep. I think your problem was that you created a seal so that there was nowhere for the juice to go.

In My Opinion:

First of all, not cleaning the strawberries is unsanitary, all berries have to be washed because they dont have a skin that you can peel off. You never know what surface it touched or what insects or worm crawled on the outside.

Second even if you dont wash your strawberries, it will still become soggy because it will be inside the cake that has LOTS of moisture. Just when you wash it, dry it good and maybe leave it out to air-dry a bit.

^-^

I just did this for a wedding cake and was very nervous about it but it turned out great. I washed and dried the strawberries, sliced them and dried them again with paper towels, sprinkled them ontop of my buttercream, added a layer of cake ect., and covered with fondant (it was a topsy turvy cake).
I did keep the cake refrigerated and I made this cake 3 days before the wedding since I had another wedding cake to do.

It did fine..no leakage.