Quick and Easy Strawberry Shortcake Dump Cake Recipe

Just 4 ingredients, this tasty Strawberry Shortcake Dump Cake is your favorite summer dessert made even easier! It’s perfect for parties and potlucks! With 5 minutes of prep, you’ll be enjoying this delicious treat in no time!

I have a really big sweet tooth and make dump cakes as often as possible. I just figured out that I could make one of my favorite desserts, a strawberry shortcake, even easier and I feel like I deserve a trophy.

I live to find shortcuts for the recipes I love and pass them on to you! Call this a shortcut shortcake if you want, because that’s totally what it is! 

Why this recipe works

There is nothing better than Strawberry Shortcake. But fresh strawberries can be hard to find or super expensive unless you find them in season (which is far too short if you ask me!). 

I know there are several ways to make a Strawberry Shortcake dessert. But in my family, it’s always with Angel Food Cake.

I love that you can make this strawberry dump cake with angel food cake with items you probably have in your pantry which means you can make this dessert whenever you are craving some strawberry goodness.

The angel food cake is light and fluffy and gets sort of a caramel-y taste to the browned crust. I love how it soaks in the juices from the fruit and it’s just so easy to make!  

Easier than my favorite No-Bake Strawberry Jello Cake and Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream with Condensed Milk, this recipe is layered and baked and makes enough to serve a crowd.

If you’re looking for a delicious strawberry dessert to make but don’t want to spend much time on it, this super simple Strawberry Shortcake Dump Cake is it!

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Ingredient notes

I’ve tried to make strawberry dump cake from fresh strawberries and I don’t love the flavor. But if you want to add a little more texture and bits of fruit, you could add in some fresh along with canned pie filling.

While a typical dump cake recipe uses butter to make a cake mix crust with the dry cake mix, using angel food cake mix is a bit different. In this case, you make the cake mix as instructed (usually just adding water and mixing) before layering on top of the fruit.

The zest and juice from an orange adds brightness to the canned strawberry. But it can be left out if you don’t have it. You could substitute with lemon zest and juice if you have that on hand.

Trader Joe’s sells a shelf-stable whipped cream product that you can keep on hand to create the perfect topping. Or you can use Cool Whip or whipped cream.

OMG. I have my eye on this juicer for citrus. You know I love to make easy cocktails so this would be perfect. I hate the idea of another gadget to store but it looks nice and small.

Or you can use a citrus squeezer like I usually do. I just think you get way more juice than if you are using your hands. 

How To Make Strawberry Shortcake Dump Cake

When I first decided to try making this dessert I wanted to use fresh strawberries to keep it as close to the original recipe as possible.

But when I tasted the finished dessert, it was totally missing something. I don’t love the flavor of roasted strawberries. There was no brightness to the taste. It didn’t sing. 

So in my opinion, you need to make this strawberry dump cake with pie filling. It actually helps to keep the recipe super fast since you don’t have to take the time to clean and slice all the berries. 

To a 9×13 baking dish add the strawberry pie filling.

Zest the orange and sprinkle over the strawberries. Juice the orange and pour into the strawberries.

With a spatula, give a quick stir to incorporate the juice and zest. It doesn’t require a hearty stir, just make sure it’s not all sitting in one place. 

I freaking love this zester. I’ve had it for years (I have a few different sizes) and it’s such good quality. It’s easy to use and washes really well in the dishwasher.

If I was tech-savvy and could figure out how to turn on the emojis I would insert praise hands right here. 

I decided to add a little orange to make sure the strawberries had a little flavor boost. Pie fillings can sometimes be overly sweet and citrus is a great way to cut through that. 

Also, when I eat traditional strawberry shortcake, I always drizzle about 1/4 cup of orange juice over my angel food cake before I add the fresh strawberries.

It’s SO good! I think I did this one time when we didn’t let the berries sit in sugar first to get all juicy and sweet. 

And it stuck. 

In a large bowl, add the angel food cake mix and water. Stir well. It expands when you stir it and looks foamy. It’s kind of cool! You’ll feel like you are doing science. 

So listen. I’m a dump cake purist and think you should only call it a dump cake if you literally just open things and pour them on top of each other.

But the angel food cake mix doesn’t work like a regular yellow cake mix as I use in this Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake. 

You have to mix it with water first or it just won’t work. But I still think this recipe is super simple and qualifies as a dump cake. 

Pour the cake mix over the top of the strawberries. Look at how the batter looks like fluffy clouds! Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 40 minutes.

You don’t want the top to be too brown but the cake does need to be set and cooked through. I love a nice golden brown crust on top.

There is so much flavor in that part of the cake! Angel Food cake on its own is a delicious treat. But used in a dump cake, it’s even better! 

Top your strawberry angel food cake dump cake with whipped cream and fresh herbs.

The creaminess of the whipped cream is a perfect pairing to the sweet strawberries and belongs on every shortcake dessert, no matter the type. 

I always love to add a few fresh herbs to my sweet desserts. I think it gives it such a nice boost of fresh flavor. It helps to cut the sweetness a little.

I love that sweet and salty combo where applicable. But here I love the sweet and savory balance. 

SO good! And SO easy. I would consider myself a lazy baker. So dump cakes are perfect for me. 

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