What is Cake?

A cake is a sweet food made by baking a mixture of flour, eggs, sugar, and fat in an oven. Cakes may be large and cut into slices or small and intended for one person only. Cake is a form of sweet dessert that is typically baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of breads, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate, and that share features with other desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies. Any number of fillings, frosting and final decorations can be chosen to make every cake unique and an artistic expression of its maker.  Cake is often served as a celebratory dish on ceremonial occasions, such as weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays.

History

The term “cake” has a long history. The word itself is of Viking origin, from the Old Norse word “kaka” The ancient Greeks called cake πλακοῦς (plakous), which was derived from the word for “flat”, πλακόεις (plakoeis). It was baked using flour mixed with eggs, milk, nuts, and honey. Early cakes in England were also essentially bread: the most obvious differences between a “cake” and “bread” were the round, flat shape of the cakes, and the cooking method, which turned cakes over once while cooking, while bread was left upright throughout the baking process. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain.

Cake Ingredients

Typical cake ingredients are flour, sugar, eggs, butter or oil or margarine, a liquid, and leavening agents, such as baking soda or baking powder. Common additional ingredients and flavourings include dried, candied, or fresh fruit, nuts, cocoa, and extracts such as vanilla, with numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients. Cakes can also be filled with fruit preserves, nuts or dessert sauces (like pastry cream), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders, or candied fruit.

Varieties of Cakes

Butter cakes: These are made from creamed butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. They rely on the combination of butter and sugar beaten for an extended time to incorporate air into the batter.

Sponge cakes (or foam cakes): These are made from whipped eggs, sugar, and flour. They rely primarily on trapped air in a protein matrix (generally of beaten eggs) to provide leavening, sometimes with a bit of baking powder or other chemical leaven added as insurance. Sponge cakes are thought to be the oldest cakes made without yeast.

Chiffon cakes: These are sponge cakes with vegetable oil, which adds moistness.

Chocolate cakes: These are butter cakes, sponge cakes, or other cakes flavored with melted chocolate or cocoa powder.

Coffee cakes: These are cakes to be serve with coffee or tea at breakfast or at a coffee break. These cakes often have a crumb topping called streusel or a light glaze drizzle.

Baked flourless cakes: These cakes include baked cheesecakes and flourless chocolate cakes. Cheesecakes, despite their name, aren’t really cakes at all. Cheesecakes are in fact custard pies, with a filling made mostly of some form of cheese (often cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta, or the like), and have very little flour added, although a flour-based or graham cracker crust may be used. Cheesecakes are also very old, with evidence of honey-sweetened cakes dating back to ancient Greece.

Butter or oil layer cakes: These cakes include most of the traditional cakes used as birthday cakes, etc., and those sold as packaged cakes. Baking powder or bicarbonate of soda are used to provide both lift and a moist texture.

Yeast cakes: These are the oldest and are very similar to yeast breads. Such cakes are often very traditional in form, and include such pastries as babka and stollen.

Lancashire Courting Cakes: These are fruit-filled cake baked by a fiancée for her betrothed. The cake has been described as “somewhere between a firm sponge – with a greater proportion of flour to fat and eggs than a Victoria sponge cake – and a shortbread base and was proof of the bride-to-be’s baking skills”. Traditionally it is a two-layer cake filled and topped with strawberries or raspberries and whipped cream.

Bundt cakes: These are cake balls that are conical, such as the Kransekake cupcakes and madeleines, which are both sized for a single person

Sheet cakes: These are simple, flat, rectangular cakes baked in sheet pans, Swiss rolls.

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