Cake

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 pures, 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.

Cake Types
There are many different types of cake recipes and many different ways of dividing them into various categories, but they are generally classified according to whether or not they contain fat, also known as shortening(not the be confused soley with just processed shortening). Thus, cakes are either: SHORTENED (BUTTER OR OIL) CAKES or UNSHORTENED (FOAM) CAKES. Chiffon cakes make up the third category, but here they're included with unshortened(foam) cakes. The classification of cake recipes: SHORTENED CAKES: contain fat, frequently in a solid form UNSHORTENED CAKES: contain little or no fat Three basic types. High ratio of eggs to flour and fall into three categories. #1: No Fat American Butter cakes Angel food cakes Meringues #2: Only Fat is Egg Yolk Pound cakes Sponge Jelly Roll Cakes or Biscuit Roulades #3: Oil and Fat in Addition to Egg Yolks Oil cakes and Cake Mixes Chiffon Genoises NOTE: Flourless Cakes are a type of foam cake. MORE CAKES: CHEESECAKES and PUDDING CAKES are technically baked (unstirred) custards. PETITS FOURS (PETIT FOUR) CAKES and CUPCAKES (CUP CAKES)are miniature cakes. Cakes can be FILLED, FROSTED and GLAZED and DECORATED. Decorated cakes include WEDDING CAKES.