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 Posted Monday, December 07, 2009 |
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Last Login: Monday, December 07, 2009
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According to some research papers that cake is a form of food that is usually sweet and often baked. Cakes normally combine some kind of flour, a sweetening agent (commonly sugar), a binding agent (generally egg, though gluten or starch are often used by lacto-vegetarians and vegans), fats (usually butter, shortening, or margarine, although a fruit purée such as applesauce is sometimes substituted to avoid using fat), a liquid (milk, water or fruit juice), flavors and some form of leavening agent (such as yeast or baking powder), though many cakes lack these ingredients and instead rely on air bubbles in the dough to expand and cause the cake to rise. Cake is often frosted with buttercream or marzipan, and finished with piped borders and crystallized fruit.
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 that even the most amateur cook may bake a 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 use mostly some form of cheese (often cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta or the like), and have very little to no flour component (though it sometimes appears in the form of a (often sweetened) crust). 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, after the French word for cake.
* Butter cakes, including the pound cake and devil's food cake, rely on the combination of butter, eggs, and sometimes baking powder to provide both lift and a moist texture.
* Ruske Kape-these are round, coconut and chocolate-flavored cakes originating in the Balkan region specifically Bosnia and Serbia.
A large cake garnished with strawberries
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.
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| Posted Sunday, January 31, 2010 |
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Last Login: Wednesday, August 04, 2010
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You forgot chiffon cake.
I have read, that some caterer in Hollywood originated the recipe back I am not sure when. This caterer kept the recipe secret for years.
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| Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2010 |
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: Wednesday, October 20, 2010
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| martha stewart's camp cupcake was vanilla!
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