Recipe | Jam donut cake

This jam donut cake has turned into my signature cake design. It all started because I was getting sick of making donuts at the bakery and thought the cinnamon sugar would be nice with a cake, so I just rolled the whole thing in it like you would a donut. And here we are.

Serves: 14

Prep time: 45 minutes

Bake time: 25–28 minutes

Ingredients

1 batch of vanilla cake (recipe below)

1 batch of raspberry coulis (recipe below)

Cinnamon sugar

150g caster sugar

1½ tbsp cinnamon

Assemble & decorate

1 batch of vanilla buttercream (recipe below)

125g punnet of fresh raspberries, cut in half

¼ tsp cinnamon, to sprinkle over

Freeze-dried raspberries

Edible flowers (Michelle uses pansies)

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Method

Bake

Line two 20cm (8-inch) round cake tins with baking paper and spray with oil. Follow the instructions on page 39 to make the vanilla cake. Divide the batter evenly between the two tins. There will be 450g of batter in each tin. Bake for 25–28 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Leave in the tins for 15 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely before assembling the cake.

Cinnamon sugar

Make the cinnamon sugar by mixing the caster sugar and cinnamon together on a dinner plate. Roll each cake in the cinnamon sugar to coat all sides, then place them back onto the cooling racks.

Assemble

Place the bottom layer of cake onto your serving plate.

Make the vanilla buttercream. Place a 1A or open circle nozzle in a piping bag, fill with the buttercream and pipe over the top of the cake layer. Spread out with a small offset palette knife.

Add 2 tablespoons of raspberry coulis on top of the vanilla buttercream and gently spread it with a spoon. Don’t spread it right to the edges or the cake may slide; leave a 5cm border. Place half of the fresh raspberries on top of the coulis.

Press the top layer of cake down. (Don’t flip the cake over! Both layers should be top baked-side up.)

Pipe buttercream around the edge on top of the cake. Add more buttercream to the centre of the cake and spread it out with a small offset palette knife.

Decorate

Use a small petal tip in a piping bag with the remaining icing and pipe frilly shapes in random spots over the top of the cake.

Sprinkle over the cinnamon. Use a teaspoon to place spoonfuls of raspberry coulis over the top. Scatter over some crushed freezedried raspberries. Cut some of the remaining fresh raspberries in half, leave some whole, too, and place them all over the top of the cake. Finish with the edible flowers.

Baker’s tip

If you are making the cake and serving it straight away, have a go at making it with Chantilly cream (page 140) instead of vanilla buttercream. It is so light and delicious! Because whipped cream isn’t stable (even gelatine-based stabilised cream wouldn’t hold for that long), you have to make and serve this straight away.

To make mini cakes

Follow the instructions below to make the vanilla mini cakes.

Once the mini cakes are cool, roll them in cinnamon sugar.

Use an apple corer or paring knife to remove the centre from each cake. Use a teaspoon to fill the centres with raspberry coulis.

Place a 1A or open circle nozzle in a piping bag and fill it with the vanilla buttercream, pipe onto each cake. Using the back of a teaspoon, create a small indent in the top of the buttercream and fill it with another dollop of raspberry coulis.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and freeze-dried raspberries. Top each cake with one fresh raspberry cut in half and finish with an edible flower.

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Vanilla cake

Here we go, time for a lot of cake. Give this recipe a whirl, and I bet you it will become your new go-to recipe.

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, softened

250g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

225g plain flour

14g baking powder

200g milk, warmed

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Method

Preheat your oven to 150°C fan bake. Spray the tin(s) of your choice with oil and line with baking paper.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or with an electric beater, cream the butter, icing sugar and vanilla essence. Once the mixture is light and fluffy, add both eggs at once and beat until they are incorporated.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and give it another mix.

Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add to the mixer bowl. Turn on the mixer to a medium speed and pour in all of the milk. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again, then mix until the batter has just come together.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin(s).

Bake time will depend on what you are making and what tin it is in. A 20cm (8-inch) round tin will take about 40–45 minutes. Mini tins will take 20–22 minutes. You can tell it’s ready when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Leave the large cake to cool in the tin(s) for 20 minutes and the mini cakes for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely before icing and decorating.

Mini cake tips

• Place the mini tins onto a baking tray so it is easy to take them out of the oven all at once.
• Once your cake batter is ready, spray the mini tins with oil again to make sure they are well coated.
• Use two spoons or a retractable ice cream scoop to get the cake batter into each mini tin. Fill each tin no more than three-quarters full with batter.

Mini loaves

•  The mini loaf tray I use is slightly smaller than one of my mini cake tins which is why I get 12 mini loaves rather than 10.
• Line the mini loaf tins and fill each tin no more than ¾ full of batter.

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Any berry coulis

Ingredients

500g frozen berries (strawberry, blueberry, boysenberry or raspberry)

120g caster sugar

20g cornflour

50g cold water

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Method

Heat the berries of your choice and caster sugar together in a saucepan over medium heat. Once it has just come to a boil, set a little aside on a saucer. When it is cool enough, give it a taste to see if there is enough sugar for your liking and adjust accordingly.

Mix the cornflour with the cold water to make a slurry and stir into the berries. Cook until the cloudiness of the cornflour goes away; it will only take a minute or so.

Pour into a container and pop into the fridge to cool. Once cold, it is ready to use!

Store in the fridge for up to a week.

Baker’s tip

Make sure you try it. Sometimes the frozen berries can vary in flavour; if it’s a bit bland, add the juice of half a lemon for an acidity kick.

To make with cherries

• Follow the recipe as above, once the cornflour is in, give it a taste. It will definitely need that squeeze of lemon!
• I use frozen cherries, which are usually sweet cherries. If you come across frozen sour cherries, you will need to add more sugar. Just add the sugar bit by bit and taste in between until you are happy with the flavour.

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Other recipes from Sweet Stuff — 

Passionfruit meringue mini cakes

Apple crumble