Whole milk has a higher fat content than water, which means that it will make the cake more flavorful, tender, and yield a finer crumb. Milk: Since we don’t have to worry about muting the color in the white cake layers, I prefer using milk. Adding just a little bit of hot water is one of my favorite tricks for making truly spreadable buttercream (which is so great because then it doesn’t tear up your cake as you spread it across). The second place we’re using water is in the buttercream frosting. I prefer using water over milk (per the box instructions) because it keeps the pink hue of the baked cake really vibrant. Water: We’re using water in two places in this recipe.
You can use whichever brand you’d like, but from what I’ve seen, it looks like other brands of strawberry cake mix will yield lighter pink layers of cake (just in case that darker pink layer is important to you). I used the Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Strawberry Supreme Cake mix, and the Betty Crocker Super Moist White Cake mix. You could make the white vanilla cakes and strawberry cakes from scratch, but since the real star of this recipe is the strawberry crunch topping, I don’t think the extra effort is necessary. Boxed Cake Mix: Boxed cake mix is the secret to making this bakery style cake actually easy to make at home (even for a beginner baker!).
