What makes a cake a cake?
What is a cake? A cake is “a sweet, baked, breadlike food, made with or without shortening, and usually containing flour, sugar, baking powder or soda, eggs, and liquid flavoring.” It can be as thin and flat as a plate or as fluffy as a cloud. The word cake originated around 1200—50.
Baking- A good cake is the one that's baked with proper steps. The cake should rise completely and should not look like a batter. It should be fluffy, spongy, and moist. Having fewer ingredients and proper baking methods make the cake more appealing.
Oven Temperature
Using proper oven temperature is important to allow the cake to rise before the structure sets. If the oven is too hot, the cake will set too fast before the air bubbles have formed. If the oven is not hot enough, the cake will rise too much, then fall in the center before it is set.
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.
To describe a cake, you can use adjectives such as delicious, moist, sweet, soft, crumbly, tangy, spongy, cakey, heavy, light, fluffy, grainy, crispy, chewy. To make your description more creative and interesting, you can use a combination of two or more adjectives.
Why is a cake compared to a woman's ass? A cake is used as slang to refer to a nice ass. It helps convey complex meaning with easy language. The comparison is done due to cakes resembling a woman's ass and to avoid the use of inappropriate words.
- Baking tests such as gassing power, gas retention, mixing tolerance/stability, and water absorption.
- Assessment of loaf volume, texture and crumb grain structure of finished products.
- Small production runs to adjust formulation and processing.
- Sensory evaluation of baked goods.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF EXCELLENT CAKES: General characteristics would include symmetrical shape with a flat or slightly rounded top, good distribution of ingredients, moist and tender, free from tunnels, and a pleasing flavor.
Room Temperature Butter / Don't Over-Cream
Butter is capable of holding air and the creaming process is when butter traps that air. While baking, that trapped air expands and produces a fluffy cake.
Most cakes will call for a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. These create the bubbles you need for the cake to rise. If the flour you use is self-raising, it already has a leavening agent in it. Make sure your butter is room temperature, and beat the butter and sugar together until properly creamed.
Why don't my cakes rise enough?
Cakes that don't rise properly or have a surface covered in little holes are often the result of not getting the cake into the oven quickly enough; a common mistake that happens because you forgot to turn the oven on before you started, or you get distracted with something else mid-way through mixing.
- In the Middle Ages, cakes are flat, round pieces of bread baked hard on both sides. ...
- According to an old American superstition, placing a fruit cake under your pillow will help you find a good husband.
- The cake stacking custom was very popular at weddings, even in the old days.
However, the ancient Egyptians are thought to have created the first cake. Egyptians often made honey-sweetened dessert breads, which were likely the earliest version of cakes.
It used to be thought that "cake" and "cook" came from similar roots, but the theory didn't pan out: "cake'"s ancient history lies in a root meaning "lump," while "cook" comes from a prehistoric word meaning, unsurprisingly, "cook."
Heat helps baking powder produce tiny bubbles of gas, which makes the cake light and fluffy. Heat causes protein from the egg to change and make the cake firm.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. An ice cream cake is a cake with ice cream as the filling for a swiss roll or a layer cake. A simpler no-bake version can be made by layering different flavors of ice cream in a loaf pan.
Flour takes the role of structure-builder within the cake. The starch in the flour is a reinforcing agent that stiffens and helps strengthen the egg foam. Some of the proteins in the flour join together to create an extensive network of coiled proteins, known as gluten. It is this gluten that holds the cake together.
These basic ingredients for baking a cake are; flour, eggs, fat (usually butter), sugar, salt, a form of liquid (usually milk), and leavening agents (such as baking soda).