Cake

It has been suggested that Cake mix be merged with this article. (Discuss)

A birthday cake decorated with fruit, shaved chocolate, and candles. The text "Happy Birthday" is a pre-manufactured plastic decoration. Based on the number of candles on the cake, it appears the birthday cake's recipient was fifteen years old.

For other uses, see Cake (disambiguation).

A cake is a form of food, usually sweet, 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 vegetarians and vegans), fats (usually butter or margarine, although a fruit puree can be substituted to avoid using fat), a liquid (milk, water or fruit juice), flavours and some form of leavening agent (such as yeast or baking powder).

Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings or birthday parties. In some traditions the bride and bridegroom are the first to eat their wedding cake, often serving each other a piece in their fingers. For birthdays, a frosted (iced) cake, often with inscriptions in frosting and figural decorations, is covered with candles, which are blown out after the celebrant makes a wish.

Creating a cake

Layered chocolate cake with chocolate icing. There is also a piped design on the top of the cake. Cream tart

Since cakes are often iced or frosted, the term cake usually refers to the entire finished object: the cake and its frosting (topping). However, cake also refers to the part that is typically made from flour.

Cake making ingredients and methods

Generally, cakes are meant to be "light and fluffy". Most cakes are made with wheat flour and therefore gluten, which means special care needs to be taken to ensure cakes don't have a chewy texture. The cake ingredients are mixed as little as possible once the flour has been added. This differs markedly from sturdy food items made with flour such as bread, where the goal is to agitate the gluten as much as possible. Cakes often rely on beating eggs and addition of leavening agents such as baking powder to produce the air bubbles in the cake. This is what makes a traditional cake fluffy and spongy.

Typical ingredients are wheat flour, eggs, oil, water, baking powder, vanilla extract, and sugar. Soft flour/cake flour is often used, as it has less gluten than either hard flour/bread flour or regular flour. Cocoa power or chocolate is added to make a chocolate cake. Light-tasting oils such as canola oil are used. Strong-tasting oils such as olive oil are not suitable as it overwhelms and contradicts the taste of other ingredients. There are several methods to combine cake ingredients:

• Creaming method - butter and sugar are creamed together before the rest of the ingredients are gradually added.
• Melt-and-mix - dry ingredients are mixed together and then melted butter and other liquids are added to complete the cake.
• Rubbing method - butter is rubbed into the dry ingredients before the liquid is added.
• 'All-in-together' - the dry ingredients and shortening are placed in the food processer and liquid is gradually added.
• Sponge-making - eggs and sugar are whipped to a froth and flour is carefully mixed in. No raising agent or fat is used in this method and it takes great skill to make a light sponge

Cake mixes are typically used at home because they are convenient. Most cake mixes simply require adding the package contents to eggs and oil in a bowl and mixing for two to three minutes. The mixture is then ready to be poured into pans and baked.

When all the cake ingredients are mixed, the mixture is called cake batter. The cake batter is usually poured into one or two a baking pans. Baking pans can be rectangular, circular, square, or even a specialized shape. Sometimes flouring the baking pan is required to prevent the cake from sticking to the pan after it is baked. To flour a baking pan:

1. entirely wipe the inside of the baking pan with a very thin layer of fat (usually butter or margarine)
2. place some flour in the inside of the pan. Shake the flour around inside the pan until the inside is entirely coated with flour.
3. tap the pan and shake out the excess flour that is not sticking to the pan. Discard this flour. The pan is now ready to have batter poured into it.

Most cakes are baked in an oven at a low temperature. Other cakes require refrigeration to make them set and stay firm.

Cake decorating methods

A finished cake is often enhanced by frosting (icing) and/or toppings such as sprinkles. Frosting is usually made from a fat of some sort, powdered (icing) sugar, sometimes milk, and often flavourings such as vanilla extract or cocoa powder. 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 colouring. In the late 20th century, new cake decorating products became available to the public. These included several specialized sprinkles and even methods to print pictures and transfer the image onto a cake.

Cake decorating classes are popular. Special tools are needed for fancy cake decorating, such as piping bags and various piping tips. To use a piping bag, a piping tip is attached to the piping bag. The bag is filled with icing which is sometimes colored. Using different piping tips and various techniques, a cake decorator can make many different designs.

Popular icing types include buttercream icing, which is made from butter, or cream cheese icing, which is typically made by substituting half the butter of an icing recipe with regular cream cheese.

Layered cakes are cakes with more than one cake or ingredient stack on top of one another. Layered cakes can consist of cake along with fruits and other fillings such as custard or icing, or several thin cakes with icing in between the layers. The latter type is produced by either baking several thin cakes, or baking a thick cake and carefully cutting the cake horizontally.

Cake storage

Cakes that are not eaten right away should be wrapped in plastic wrap or an airtight or semi-airtight container to prevent drying out. Some cakes and/or icing require the cake to be refrigerated.

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Cake

See also

• List of cakes

References

• In the Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Baker's Companion by Regan Daley ISBN 1579652085