is a term with a long history (the word is of Viking origin, from the Old Norse kaka) and a subject with many aspects. This entry is concerned with definitions and history; another is on cake-making, while categories of cake and individual cakes with their own entries are angel food cake, Banbury cakes, Battenberg cake, black bun, Black Forest gateau, chiffon cake, Christmas foods, Coventry godcakes, cup cake, devil's food cake, Easter foods, Eccles cakes, fruit cakes, gache, galette, gateau, génoise, gingerbread, honey cake, lamington, lardy cake, Madeira cake, madeleine, marble cake, mooncakes, pancake, pound cake, queen cake, rock cakes, Sachertorte, saffron cake, Savoy, seed cake, simnel cake, sponge cake, stollen, Swiss roll, tea breads and tea cakes, tennis cake, tipsy cake, Torte and Kuchen, Twelfth Night cake, upside down cake, Victoria sandwich cake, wedding meals and cakes.
Definition is not easy, but the following corresponds to English usage. Cake denotes a baked flour confection sweetened with sugar or honey; it is mixed with eggs and often, but not invariably, with milk and fat; and it has a porous texture from the mixture rising during cooking.
It is not surprising that the frontiers between cake and bread, biscuit, bun are indistinct. The progenitor of all is bread in its simplest form. As techniques for baking and leavening developed, and eating patterns changed, what were originally regarded as forms of bread came to be seen as categories of their own, and named accordingly. The point is well brought out by Ayto (1993) who observes that certain Roman breads, enriched with eggs and butter, must have achieved a cakelike consistency and thus approached one of these indistinct frontiers. He continues:
Terminologically, too, the earliest English cakes were virtually bread, their main distinguishing characteristics being their shape—round and flat—and the fact that they were hard on both sides from being turned over during baking. John de Trevisa (1398) gives an early definition: ‘Some brede is bake and tornyd and wende [turned] at fyre and is called … a cake.’ It is this basic shape that lies behind the transference of the name to other, completely different foods, such as fishcakes, pancakes, and potato cakes.
The process whereby cakes evolved from breads was such that some items were inevitably left perched on the frontier—they could be one thing or the other, as in the case of tea breads and tea cakes.
Europe and places such as N. America where European influence is strong have always been the stronghold of cakes. One might even draw a line more tightly, round English-speaking areas. No other language has a word that means exactly the same as the English ‘cake’ (though some echo it with strange-looking forms such as ‘kek’, when meaning to refer to English-type cakes). The continental European gateau and Torte often contain higher proportions of butter, eggs, and enriching ingredients such as chocolate, and often lean towards pastry rather than cake. Central and E. European items such as baba and kulich (see Easter foods) are likewise different.
The occidental tradition of cakes applies little in Asia. In some countries western-style cakes have been adopted on a small scale, for example the small sponge cakes called kasutera in Japan. But the ‘cakes’ which are important in Asia are quite different from anything occidental; for examples, see mooncakes and rice cakes of the Philippines.
The history of cakes, in the broadest sense of the term, goes a long way back. Among the remains found in Swiss lake villages were crude cakes made from roughly crushed grains, moistened, compacted, and cooked on a hot stone. Such cakes can be regarded as a form of unleavened bread, as the precursor of all modern European baked products. Some modern survivors of these mixtures still go by the name ‘cake’, for instance oatcakes, although these are now considered to be more closely related to biscuits by virtue of their flat, thin shape and brittle texture. Over many centuries, by trial and error and influence from other cultures, baking techniques improved. From the basic method for making what was essentially desiccated porridge, leavened and unleavened cereal mixtures evolved into breads, cakes, and pastries.
Ancient Egypt was the first culture to show evidence of true skill in baking, making many kinds of bread including some sweetened with honey. Later the products of the island of Rhodes achieved a reputation in the classical world. Although they were probably rather breadlike, they were eaten as desserts, not staples, thus occupying a similar niche to modern cakes.
The ancient Greek word for cake was plakous, from the same root as the word for ‘flat’. From this was derived the Latin word placenta (and the modern ‘placenta’ the unborn baby's food supply). In the 2nd century bc Cato described a type of placenta resembling a modern cheesecake. A Roman cake known as a satura was flat and heavy, made from barley with raisins, pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, and sweet wine. (The name of this cake, full of added ingredients, is linked to the word ‘saturate’; and to ‘satire’, which at first meant a literary hotchpotch.)
By the early centuries ad the Romans had acquired considerable skill in the control of yeast, the only leavening known at the time; and barbarian peoples to the north and west of the Empire were adept at using barm, foaming yeast drawn from the top of beer, as a raising agent. During the medieval period there was no clear distinction between bread and cake in terms of richness and sweetness. Both words passed from Anglo-Saxon into English. Possibly ‘cake’ meant something small at the beginning of the period, since it was generally translated into Latin as pastillus, a little cake or pie. However, by the time Chaucer was writing in the late 14th century, immense cakes were being made for special occasions. Chaucer mentions one made with half a bushel (13 kg/28 lb) of flour. Sweet cakes containing currants, butter, cream, eggs, spices, and honey or sugar were often made. Raised with yeast, these would now be regarded as enriched fruit breads.
Cakelike survivors of this enriched bread type are still found today in the form of Alsatian kugelhopf and Welsh bara brith. And from these enriched yeast-leavened mixtures developed a number of modern creamed cakes, particularly fruit cakes. (Quite how the creaming method evolved is uncertain. It is initiated with sugar and fat and ended by adding flour, and thus is a reversal of bread-making, which begins with flour. See cake-making.)
Italian pastry-cooks worked in both France and England during the 16th century and introduced many new baked goods. Some items, such as Genoese and Naples ‘biscuits’, had Italian names which they were to keep for centuries. Recipes such as these, which did not include yeast, were the precursors of whisked sponges (see cake-making). The earliest surviving British recipe to use a real sponge cake mixture was given by Gervase Markham (1615). All such recipes were probably used to make small, thin, crisp cakes which their makers called ‘biscuit’.
Recipes for ‘biscuit’-type cakes are found in many 17th-century cookery books, along with yeast-leavened plum (fruit) cakes, gingerbread, and small items of the macaroon type. Spiced buns and cakes such as wigs became common breakfast foods.
During the 18th century yeast was finally abandoned as a leavening for fruit cakes in favour of the raising power of beaten egg. Cake recipes of this period call for the mixture to be beaten for a very long time, to incorporate as much air as possible.
By the 17th century most of the ingredients important to modern cake-making had become known in Europe. Spices and dried fruits had been imported since the Middle Ages; citrus fruits were arriving in increasing quantities from the Mediterranean. The Columbian exchange with the New World brought chocolate and vanilla to the attention of Europeans. Colonization of the W. Indies and the development of sugar plantations made sugar cheaper and easier to obtain; and treacle, available in Britain from 1660, replaced honey in many products such as gingerbread.
Moulds, in the form of cake hoops or pans, have been used for forming cakes since at least the mid-17th century. Paper hoops could be improvised to contain the mixture; Sir Kenelm Digby (1669) favoured wood over metal hoops, as he found the latter were liable to rust. Metal cake hoops were similar to modern flan rings, open at the bottom, and placed on a baking sheet as a base. Elizabeth David (1977) conjectures that expanding cake hoops were known, and could be adjusted according to the amount of mixture to be baked. Cake hoops were prepared by buttering them, and floured paper was placed underneath them. Cake ‘pans’ (now known as tins in England, but still called pans in the USA) were also used.
Most cakes were eaten to accompany a glass of sweet wine (the origin of the Madeira cake) or a dish of tea. They had not found a real place in a set meal, except among the miscellaneous sweetmeats offered as dainties at the end. At large banquets, elaborately decorated cakes might form part of the display, but would probably not be eaten. In the mid-19th century when France, under Russian influence, and then by other western European countries, began to adopt the sequence of courses known as service à la russe, it became possible to have a purely sweet course. Cakes adopted a new form to fill this role. The medium-sized rich cake, iced, filled, and decorated, appeared. See gateau, a term used both in France and in Britain.
During the 19th century, technology made the cake-baker's life much easier. The chemical raising agent bicarbonate of soda, introduced in the 1840s, followed by baking powder (a dry mixture of bicarbonate of soda with a mild acid), replaced yeast, providing greater leavening power with less effort. Supplies of white flour, granulated sugar, and cheap shortening such as margarine all helped to make cake baking popular. Another important contribution made by technology was the development of ovens with reliable temperature control.
In most of NW Europe and N. America a well-developed tradition of home baking survives, with a huge repertoire of cake recipes developed from the basic methods. Most of these rely on additions such as chocolate or glacé cherries for their effect. Many probably owe their inspiration to recipe leaflets handed out by the manufacturers of baking powders and shortenings from the late 19th century onwards. The ability to bake a good cake was a prized skill among housewives in the early to mid-20th century, when many households could produce a simple robust, filling ‘cut and come again’ cake, implying abundance and hospitality. Although the popularity of home baking and the role of cakes in the diet have both changed during the 20th century, cakes remain almost ubiquitous in the western world and have kept their image as ‘treats’.
Laura Mason has written about several aspects of British food in books including Sugar Plums and Sherbet (1998), Farmhouse Cookery (2005), and Traditional Foods of Britain (1999), which she co-authored with Catherine Brown.
Ayto, John (1993), The Diner's Dictionary, Oxford: OUP.
David, Elizabeth (1977), English Bread and Yeast Cookery, London: Allen Lane.
Digby, Sir Kenelm (1669), The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, ed Anne MacDonnell, London: Philip Lee Warner (1910); ed Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson, Totnes: Prospect Books (1997).
Markham, Gervase (1615), The English Hus-wife, 1st edn, London.
