Cake

A layered pound cake filled with raspberry jam and lemon curd, and finished with buttercream frosting
Details
Course	Dessert
Main ingredient(s)	Usually flour, sugar, eggs, butter or oil

Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape. Determining whether a given food should be classified as bread, cake, or pastry can be difficult.

Modern cake, especially layer cakes, normally contain a combination of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter or oil, with some varieties also requiring liquid (typically milk or water) and leavening agents (such as yeast or baking powder). Flavorful ingredients like fruit purées, nuts, dried or candied fruit, or extracts are often added, and numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients are possible. Cakes are often filled with fruit preserves or dessert sauces (like pastry cream), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders or candied fruit.^[1]

Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays. There are countless cake recipes; some are bread-like, some rich and elaborate, and many are centuries old. Cake making is no longer a complicated procedure; while at one time considerable labor went into cake making (particularly the whisking of egg foams), baking equipment and directions have been simplified so that even the most amateur cook may bake a cake.

Varieties

German chocolate cake

Raisin cake

Cakes are broadly divided into several categories, based primarily on ingredients and cooking techniques.

• Yeast cakes 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.
• 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.
• Sponge cakes are thought to be the first of the non-yeast-based cakes and 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. Such cakes include the Italian/Jewish pan di Spagna and the French Génoise. Highly decorated sponge cakes with lavish toppings are sometimes called gateau; the French word for cake.

A large cake garnished with strawberries

• Butter cakes, including the pound cake and devil's food cake, rely on the combination of butter, eggs, and sometimes baking powder or bicarbonate of soda to provide both lift and a moist texture.

Beyond these classifications, cakes can be classified based on their appropriate accompaniment (such as coffee cake) and contents (e.g. fruitcake or flourless chocolate cake).

Some varieties of cake are widely available in the form of cake mixes, wherein some of the ingredients (usually flour, sugar, flavoring, baking powder, and sometimes some form of fat) are premixed, and the cook needs add only a few extra ingredients, usually eggs, water, and sometimes vegetable oil or butter. While the diversity of represented styles is limited, cake mixes do provide an easy and readily available homemade option for cooks who are not accomplished bakers.

Special-purpose cakes

Cake made for a baby shower and decorated with edible ingredients

Cakes may be classified according to the occasion for which they are intended. For example, wedding cakes, birthday cakes, cakes for first communion, Christmas cakes, Halloween cakes and Passover plava (a type of sponge cake sometimes made with matzo meal) are all identified primarily according to the celebration they are intended to accompany. The cutting of a wedding cake constitutes a social ceremony in some cultures. The Ancient Roman marriage ritual of confarreatio originated in the sharing of a cake.

Particular types of cake may be associated with particular festivals, such as stollen or chocolate log (at Christmas), babka and simnel cake (at Easter), or mooncake. There has been a long tradition of decorating an iced cake at Christmas time; other cakes associated with Christmas include chocolate log and mince pies.

Shapes

A chocolate cake

Cakes are frequently described according to their physical form. Cakes may be small and intended for individual consumption. Larger cakes may be made with the intention of being sliced and served as part of a meal or social function. Common shapes include:

• Bundt cakes
• Cake balls
• Conical, such as the Kransekake
• Cupcakes and madeleines, which are both sized for a single person
• Layer cakes, frequently baked in a springform pan and decorated
• Sheet cakes, simple, flat, rectangular cakes baked in sheet pans
• Swiss roll cakes

Cake flour

A decorated birthday cake

Special cake flour with a high starch-to-gluten ratio is made from fine-textured, soft, low-protein wheat. It is strongly bleached, and compared to all-purpose flour, cake flour tends to result in cakes with a lighter, less dense texture.^[2] Therefore, it is frequently specified or preferred in cakes meant to be soft, light, and or bright white, such as angel food cake. However, if cake flour is called for, a substitute can be made by replacing a small percentage of all-purpose flour with cornstarch or removing two tablespoons from each cup of all-purpose flour.^[3][4][5] Some recipes explicitly specify or permit all-purpose flour, notably where a firmer or denser cake texture is desired.

Cake decorating

A chocolate cake decorated with icing, strawberries, and silvery sugar beads or Dragées.

A slice of strawberry cake with garnishing of strawberry.

Chocolate layer cake with chocolate frosting and shaved chocolate topping

A finished cake is often enhanced by covering it with icing, or frosting, and toppings such as sprinkles, which are also known as "jimmies" in certain parts of the United States and "hundreds and thousands" in the United Kingdom. Frosting is usually made from powdered (icing) sugar, sometimes a fat of some sort, milk or cream, and often flavorings such as vanilla extract or cocoa powder. Some decorators use a rolled fondant icing. Commercial bakeries tend to use lard for the fat, and often whip the lard to introduce air bubbles. This makes the icing light and spreadable. Home bakers either use lard, butter, margarine or some combination thereof. Sprinkles are small firm pieces of sugar and oils that are colored with food coloring. In the late 20th century, new cake decorating products became available to the public. These include several specialized sprinkles and even methods to print pictures and transfer the image onto a cake.

Special tools are needed for more complex cake decorating, such as piping bags or syringes, and various piping tips. To use a piping bag or syringe, a piping tip is attached to the bag or syringe using a coupler. The bag or syringe is partially filled with icing which is sometimes colored. Using different piping tips and various techniques, a cake decorator can make many different designs. Basic decorating tips include open star, closed star, basketweave, round, drop flower, leaf, multi, petal, and specialty tips.

Royal icing, marzipan (or a less sweet version, known as almond paste), fondant icing (also known as sugarpaste) and buttercream are used as covering icings and to create decorations. Floral sugarcraft or wired sugar flowers are an important part of cake decoration. Cakes for special occasions, such as wedding cakes, are traditionally rich fruit cakes or occasionally Madeira cakes, that are covered with marzipan and iced using royal icing or sugar-paste. They are finished with piped borders (made with royal icing) and adorned with a piped message, wired sugar flowers, hand-formed fondant flowers, marzipan fruit, piped flowers, or crystallized fruits or flowers such as grapes or violets.

History

The term "cake" has a long history. The word itself is of Viking origin, from the Old Norse word "kaka".^[6]

Although clear examples of the difference between cake and bread are easy to find, the precise classification has always been elusive.^[7] For example, banana bread may be properly considered either a quick bread or a cake.

The Greeks invented beer as a leavener, frying fritters in olive oil, and cheesecakes using goat's milk.^[8] In ancient Rome, basic bread dough was sometimes enriched with butter, eggs, and honey, which produced a sweet and cake-like baked good.^[7] Latin poet Ovid refers to the birthday of him and his brother with party and cake in his first book of exile, Tristia.^[9]

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.^[7]

Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain.^[10]

See also

• List of cakes
• Pie
• Torte
• Turnover
• Food portal
• Embossing mat

References

External links

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Cake

The dictionary definition of cake at Wiktionary Media related to Cake at Wikimedia Commons

v t e Cake List of cakes Butter cakes Devil's food cake Gooey butter cake Pound cake Cheesecakes Ostkaka Chocolate cakes Black Forest cake Flourless chocolate cake Fudge cake Garash cake German chocolate cake Joffre cake Kladdkaka Molten chocolate cake Sachertorte Game cake Fruitcakes Black bun Bolo rei Dundee Cake Genoa cake Panforte Layer cakes Angel cake Buckwheat gateau Dobos torte Esterhazy torte Hot milk cake Kiev cake Mille-feuille Princess Cake Prinzregententorte Rainbow cake Spekkoek Spit cakes Baumkuchen Kürtőskalács (Chimney cake) Šakotis Spettekaka Trdelník Sponge cakes Battenberg cake Boston cream pie Charlotte Chiffon cake Donauwelle Frankfurter Kranz French Fancy Frog cake Lamington Madeira cake Mantecadas Marble cake Opera cake Pandan cake Paper wrapped cake Red velvet cake Rum cake Shortcake Spice cake Tres leches cake Upside-down cake Foam cakes Angel food cake Castella Génoise (cake) Ladyfinger Madeleine Meringue Swiss roll Yeast cakes Babka Banana bread Banbury cake Chorley cake Date and walnut loaf Eccles cake Flies graveyard Rum baba Streuselkuchen Sweetheart cake Welsh cake Special occasions Birthday cake Buccellato Bûche de Noël (Christmas) Christmas cake Doberge cake Groom's cake King cake (Mardi Gras) Lekach (Rosh Hashanah) Marry girl cake Mooncake (Mid-Autumn Festival) Pan de Pascua (Christmas) Simnel cake (Easter) Soul cake (All Saints' Day) Stack cake (Wedding) Stollen Wedding cake Other Apple cake Bizcocho Bulla cake Bundt cake Carrot cake Coconut cake Coffee cake Croquenbouche Cupcake Cupcone Dacquoise Erotic cake Game cake Gingerbread Gugelhupf Heavy cake Ice cream cake Jaffa Cakes Lolly cake Muffin Ontbijtkoek Pain d'épices Parkin Pavlova Petit four Punschkrapfen Ruske kape Šampita Krempita Teacake Tompouce Kuih Category     Commons