 So many cakes, so little time. This delectable mousse cake with a caramel topping is from FinancierPastries.com.
June 2008
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Cake Glossary
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There are thousands of different types of cakes in the world today; each culture has its specialties, most of which never reach our shores. Here, we present some of the more popular types one is likely to encounter—or at least hear about—in the U.S. If your favorite isn’t represented, tell us about it. After you’ve checked out the cakes, take a look at our other food glossaries—an easy way to get up to speed on more than fifty different food categories. Most related to this Cake Glossary are our Chocolate Glossary, Custard Glossary, Dessert Sauce Glossary, Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts Glossary and Sugar Glossary.
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 CAKE
The meaning of “cake” has changed through the ages. In ancient Roman times, a cake was a small bread; sugar was unknown and honey was dear. Wealthy Romans did have cheesecakes baked with honey, but they did not resemble today’s rich, creamy cheese cake indulgences. The 19th century was the dawn of the modern cake, thanks to the emergence of the modern oven with a thermostat and universal access to sugar, which had previously been a costly import affordable only for the wealthy. Today’s cakes are made from a batter or dough of butter (or substitute, such as margarine or oil), eggs, flour, sugar, flavorings and sometimes a leavener such as baking powder or baking soda. Most modern cakes fall into these categories:
Key lime cheesecake available from MackenzieLtd.com.
- Butter cakes, which often use baking powder to help the cake rise (devil’s food cake and pound cake, e.g.)
- Cheesecakes, which use eggs to help the cake rise, and contain little or no flour, except in the crust (and are actually custard pies, not cakes)
- Foam cakes, airy cakes made with little or no fat (angel food cake, chiffon, meringue, e.g.)
- Fruit cakes, dense, heavy cakes made with candied, dried and glazed fruits (cherries, citron, citrus peel, currants, dates, pineapple, raisins) and nuts (Dundee cake, election cake and pecan whiskey cake, e.g.)
- Spice cakes, more casual cakes heavily accented with allspice, cinnamon and other spices (applesauce cake, jam cake and gingerbread, e.g.)
- Sponge cakes and angel food cakes, which use beaten eggs to rise (chiffon, génoise and tres leches cakes, e.g.)
- Yeast cakes, sweeter versions of yeast breads, and the oldest type of cake (babka, savarin and stollen, e.g.)
Some cakes occupy more than one category; sponge and angel cakes are also foam cakes, and some spice cakes are fruit cakes, for example.
CAKE FLOUR
Cake flour is more bleached and has a high starch:gluten ratio than all-purpose flour. It is used to produce lighter, less dense or bright white cakes, such as angel food cake. See Flour.
CAKE MIX
Dry baking mixes are a convenience food born of the Industrial Revolution.  The first dry mixes, custard powders, were introduced in England in the 1840s. According to FoodTimeline.org, O. Duff and Sons, a molasses company, marketed the first boxed cake mix in the U.S. in the late 1920s or early 1930s. More than half a dozen companies produced cake mixes before World War II; of the enduring brands, it wasn’t until 1947 that General Mills launched Betty Crocker’s first mix. Early cake mixes were not readily embraced: They produced inconsistent results and, though convenient, were not as good as the “from scratch” cakes homemakers were used to. Even when manufacturers got it right years later, and all one had to do was add water and bake, the complaint was that it “wasn’t like baking.” The solution: have the homemaker add an egg and shortening or oil. Then it was “like home baking,” and today more cakes are baked from mixes than from scratch. While for most of its history the cake mix was an inexpensive product, today “gourmet” cake mixes costing up to $10.00 a box (compared to $2.00 for supermarket brands, and made with finer ingredients) are available. Some bear the names of culinary luminaries such as Jacques Torres and The Barefoot Contessa. The King’s Cupboard cake mix brand and the Bundt cake mix varieties shown above were both NIBBLE Top Picks Of The Week.
 CARROT CAKE
Grated carrots mixed into a batter create a lovely, rough-textured spice bread or spice cake with colorful orange flecks; carrots add moisture, too. They are generally combined with walnuts or pecans. (The breads generally have less sugar and are baked in a loaf pan.) Cream cheese frosting is often used to top and fill the cake. Carrots have been used in European cakes since the Middle Ages, when other sweeteners were too expensive or difficult to obtain. Carrots, along with beets, contain more sugar than most other vegetables (America and its sweet corn had not yet been discovered).
Get the recipe for this carrot cake, from San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti.
CHARLOTTE
 A charlotte is a molded desserts that can be served hot, cold or frozen; the filling is poured into a mold lined with buttered bread, cake or ladyfingers, then decorated with fruit, whipped cream, etc. The concept is credited to the great 19th-century chef, Antoine Carême. “Charlotte” is an evolution of the Old English word “charlyt,” meaning a dish of custard. A typical cold charlotte is made in a ladyfinger-lined mold and filled with Bavarian cream. Frozen charlottes are filled with frozen soufflé or mousse. Charlottes are made with almost every variety of fruit; chocolate and tiramisu charlottes are also popular, as well as holiday flavors like maple and pumpkin.
Photo of lemon charlotte © pr2is | Fotolia.
- Apple Charlotte is made by lining a mold with buttered bread, filled with apples.
- Charlotte Malakoff is a mold lined with ladyfingers and filled with a soufflé mixture of cream, butter, sugar, liqueur, chopped almonds and whipped cream. It is traditionally garnished with strawberries.
- Charlotte Russe, or “Russian” Charlotte, is a cake in which a mold is lined with ladyfingers and filled with custard. It is served cold, with whipped cream.
CHECKERBOARD CAKE
 A butter cake that uses a batter ring to create yellow and chocolate cake (or another contrasting color/flavor cake, such as lavender or strawberry) in concentric layers within each pan. When the baked layers are combined and the cake is sliced, a checkerboard pattern appears.
Checkerboard cake pans available from SurLaTable.com.
 CHEESECAKE
A cheesecake is not a cake, but a custard pie. It is typically made from cream cheese, cottage cheese, Neufchatel or ricotta, but fresh chèvre and other cheeses have been employed; they can be topped with a layer of sour cream on top. Recipes vary from light and airy to heavy and rich, and there are savory recipes as well as sweet ones. Cheesecakes are baked in a springform pan. They were made prior to classic times and were popular in ancient Greece and Rome. New York cheesecake refers to an all-cream-cheese recipe. There are as many flavors of cheesecake as there are people with imagination to create them—from key lime to peanut butter to Black Forest—as anyone who has been to a Cheesecake Factory restaurant will attest. Cheesecakes are also sculpted into everything from flowerpots to footballs to handbags, as a visit to Elegant Cheesecakes (a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week) will also attest.
Photo of cheesecake by Kelly Cline | IST.
CHIFFON CAKE
According to General Mills, the Chiffon Cake, invented in 1927, was the first new cake to come along in 100 years. (One might dispute that—the brownie debuted within 30 years prior to it and digging through culinary history will produce more). The secret of this light and airy cake is that it uses vegetable oil instead of butter or conventional shortening. It was invented by the aptly named Harry Baker, a Los Angeles insurance agent, who sold it to the Brown Derby restaurant and to Hollywood stars. In 1947, he sold the recipe to General Mills, and it was published to great sensation in the May, 1948 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine.
CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE
The difference between a chocolate cake and a chocolate fudge cake is the amount of chocolate in the recipe. A fudge cake will have double the amount of chocolate; for example, four ounces, as opposed to the usual two, in an eight-inch layer cake.
COBBLER
Although some might see the cobbler as a crustless pie, it is actually classified as a cake. Fruit is baked in a baking dish or casserole, then topped with shortcake batter or streusel.
COCONUT CAKE
While numerous cake recipes include coconut (German Chocolate Cake, for example), a classic Southern coconut cake is a white or yellow layer cake with a seven-minute frosting (some people use buttercream or marshmallow frosting). The cake is covered in fresh-grated coconut. As with any recipe, there are many variations, including pineapple filling and coconut milk in the batter.
COFFEE CAKE
 A yeast-leavened cake-like bread that is typically served at breakfast or as a snack with coffee or tea. It is often glazed with a white icing or topped with streusel. Coffee cake can contain raisins, nuts, other dried fruits and chocolate chunks. Most are flavored with cinnamon. More elaborate recipes incorporate cream cheese, jam and other fillings such as lemon curd.
This streusel-topped coffee cake with a cinnamon-walnut swirl is available at MackenzieLtd.com.
CONFECTIONER’S FROSTING
An uncooked buttercream icing made from confectioner’s sugar, unsalted butter, milk and flavoring.
CONFECTIONER’S SUGAR or POWDERED SUGAR or 10x SUGAR
Confectioner’s sugar, also known as icing sugar, is a very finely-ground form of granulated sugar with the consistency of talcum powder. It dissolves quickly to make icing, and is used to dust a powdery garnish onto unfrosted cakes. 10x refers to the number of times the sugar is processed to produce fine powder.
CREAM OF TARTAR
Cream of tartar is used in some cake recipes to provide more volume and a finer, whiter crumb. In frostings, it provides extra creaminess. Cream of tartar, or tartaric acid, is a sediment found on the inside of wine caskets after fermentation. It is purified and ground to create the baking ingredient.
CRÈME PÂTISSIÈRE
Crème pâtissière, pastry cream, is a stirred custard thickened with cornstarch or flour and typically flavored with vanilla (although other flavors can be used). It is used to fill éclairs or to top fresh fruit tarts, and is added to buttercream to make mousseline filling for cake and pastry. It is made of egg yolks, sugar and cream or milk, like crème anglaise, but the addition of starch gives it the stability to be brought to a boil. With the addition of beaten egg whites, it becomes a crème Saint-Honoré, a filling for cream puffs.
CUPCAKE
Cupcakes are small, individual-portion cakes. The name is derived from the teacup: Before the advent of muffin tins, cupcakes were often baked in individual tea cups (as well as ramekins). Today they are baked in muffin tins, usually with a paper or foil liner. They are frosted and often decorated with sprinkles, candies, rosettes, coconut and other toppings. In recent years, cupcakes have moved beyond children’s party fare and have become popular with pastry chefs and consumers as sophisticated alternatives to large cakes at weddings and other celebrations. Cupcake “trees” stack the cupcakes in the shape of a large, tiered cake.
Photo of cupcakes courtesy of Mrs. Beasley’s and DelightfulDeliveries.com.
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