My son has asked for a strawberry shortcake cake for his birthday cake. Does anyone know of a great recipe?

It's probably too late but I love Melissa Clark's sponge cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. You can find it on her column in NYT.

OK. After much thought, I'm going with the cake from Yassey Arefi's recipe and the strawberry filling from the ATK recipe. THANK YOU all. Now that I've settled on this choice, the actual birthday party will be easy, right?

When I was a little girl, we would have a dinner of Strawberry Shortcake when the Strawberries were fresh. Sweetened biscuits, ice cream, sliced strawberries and whipped cream. What a great memory!

I so agree with rosalind5. Yes..strawberry shortcake means with biscuits, but we are speaking of birthday wishes, so who cares about regional rules. I totally get the difference between shortcake and strawberry shortcake cake.

America's Test Kitchen also has a great strawberry cream cake recipe. It is a yellow sponge split into three layers with whole berries, a thickened berry sauce, and whipped cream stabilized with a bit of cream cheese. I've made it several times and it is wonderful. It's in their book Blue Ribbon Desserts.

In my world Strawberry Shortcake has never been a cake. It's made individually on a larger, slightly sweeter biscuit. And it is -- along with peach cobbler -- my favorite summer dessert. I realize that other regions of the US consider a cake base traditional for Strawberry Shortcake, but as long as I've been on the East Coast I've never been able to wrap my head around that concept.

These strawberry shortcake ice cream pops were a hit:
https://food52.com/recipes/28668-strawberry-shortcake-ice-cream-pops

Ina Garten has a strawberry "country cake" recipe I made years ago, and it was great.

Ina Garten has a strawberry "country cake" recipe I made years ago, and it was great.

Thanks so much for these recipes! If anyone else has a proven recipe, I'd love to know.

To clarify, I am looking for strawberry shortcake *birthday cake* recipes - not individual strawberry shortcakes (not feasible for a birthday party for ~20 children!).

For an actual cake, here is Yossi's (great) recipe: https://food52.com/recipes/28898-strawberry-shortcake. If you're looking for individual shortcakes, these are amazing: https://food52.com/recipes/17661-james-beard-s-strawberry-shortcakes

You might check to be sure that you and he are on the same wave length in the definition of strawberry shortcake. Some think of it as a yellow cake of some sort with strawberries and whipped cream. For others, shortcake is a sweet biscuit piled with macerated strawberries and whipped cream. They are two very different animals.

Joyofbaking.com has GREAT recipes. I've tried quite a few of the recipes and they turn out perfect every single time.

There is a good looking one on this site. It looks very celebratory. Just use the search function and search for Strawberry Shortcake. Yassey Arefi is the poster of the recipe.