Four Berry Jelly Doughnut Cake with Black Sesame Cinnamon Sugar

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Benito on 3 Aug 2025 at 08:38
Cake

For our dinner party tonight we will be seeing from friends from Fort Lauderdale Florida who we won’t see very often anymore since we sold our apartment there.  So I had a busy baking weekend to ensure that they have a good meal at our place.  I have made this cake once before, but having made this once, I made some improvements on it.

The homemade jam is now a four berry jam made with frozen Canadian blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries along with lemon zest and lemon juice.  I always like adding lemon zest and juice to these types of jams or pie fillings.  The lemon flavour always brightens up the berry/fruit flavours and adds a nice tartness to balance the sugar.  Then the other change is that I used a black sesame cinnamon sugar mix to coat the cake.  I don’t think you can beat the slight nuttiness that the black sesame adds to the coating.  It also adds an interesting black/white appearance to the coating as well.

I finally got smart when I needed to add the sugar coating.  The dome of the cake is intended to be the top of the cake.  So it is flipped onto a rack, another rack is placed on the top (which is the bottom of the cake) and flipped again.  Next what I decided to do was to place two pieces of parchment paper on my serving dish.  The cake was then slid off the rack onto the middle of the dish which is now kept clean by the parchment.  Next the melted butter is brushed on and then the sugar is sprinkles and pressed into the top and sides of the cake.  Once done with sugaring the cake, I was able to just slide the parchment sheets out from under cake leaving me with less of a mess on my countertops and none on my serving dish.  I’m sure a baker has already figured this out before, but I hadn’t seen it done and the original recipe for this cake doesn’t have this method in there.  I’ve added those instructions to the recipe below in case someone wants to bake this yummy cake.\

Makes 1(8-inch) cake

If you love jelly donuts, this cake will blow your mind And if you choose to eat it for breakfast, then we say you just won the day.

Ingredients

Wet ingredients

¾ cup (180 grams) whole milk

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons (198 grams) unsalted butter, melted and divided

2 large eggs (100 grams)

½ teaspoon (3 grams) vanilla bean paste or ½ tsp of vanilla extract

Dry ingredients

2½ cups (313 grams) all-purpose flour

1¼ cups (250 grams) granulated sugar (used 215 g)

1½ teaspoons (7.5 grams) baking powder

1 teaspoon (3 grams) kosher salt

1 teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg

¾ cup (240 grams) Quick Four berry Jam (recipe follows)

Black Sesame Cinnamon-Sugar (recipe follows)

  1.   Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Butter an 8-inch round cake pan; line pan with parchment paper including the sides.  Because my cake pan is low, I use tall side parchment paper to allow the cake to rise beyond the pan which it will.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together milk, ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (141 grams) melted butter, eggs, and vanilla bean paste. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Gradually add flour mixture to milk mixture, stirring just until combined
  3. Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spoon remaining batter into a large piping bag. Pipe a ring of batter around inside edge of pan. Spoon Quick Four Berry Jam into centre of ring. Pipe remaining batter on top of jam, and smooth with an offset spatula.
  4. Bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour, covering with foil during last 30 minutes of baking to prevent excess browning, if necessary. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes.
  5. Remove the sides pieces of parchment paper. Turn the cake out onto a rack.  Place another rack on top of the cake (the bottom is facing up).  Then turn cake back over so dome is on top back onto the rack.  Prepare your dish by placing two pieces of parchment paper on it so that you can easily catch the excess sugar from making a mess on your dish.  You’ll be able to remove the paper from under the cake once you’re done applying the sugar.  Brush top and sides of cake with remaining ¼ cup (57 grams I only needed about half of this, so about 28 g) melted butter. Sprinkle top with Cinnamon-Sugar, and press into sides of cake.  Carefully slide each piece of parchment paper out from under the cake.  You will need to hold the side of the cake with your hand, you could used a small piece of parchment paper against the side of the cake to your hand doesn’t pull sugar off the cake.

 

QUICK FOUR BERRY JAM

Makes 2 cups

½ pound (225 grams) fresh blackberries

½ pound (225 grams) fresh blueberries

(I used 480 g of mixed frozen berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries)

2 cups (400 grams) granulated sugar (way too much sugar, maybe try ½-¾ cups even for my greater weight of fruit)

        For 480 g of fruit ½ cup sugar used.

2 tablespoons (15 grams) lemon juice.  I used juice of half a lemon 

Zest of half a lemon

1 heaping tbsp of corn starch (my addition)

  1.   In a large saucepan, combine all ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon, and let stand for 2 hours.
  2. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.  Cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium, and cook, stirring frequently and mashing berries with a potato masher, until mixture thickens, 20 to 45 minutes. (See Note.) Remove from heat, and let cool for 1 hour before transferring to a clean jar. Jam will keep refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

 

Black Sesame Cinnamon Sugar

100 g sugar

½  tsp cinnamon

Around 1 tbsps ground roasted sesame seeds

Combine in a small bowl.

 

My index of bakes.