That cake is a cheat!!!
Cake is a form of food that is usually sweet and 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, shortening, or margarine, although a fruit puree can be substituted to avoid using fat), a liquid (milk, water or fruit juice), flavors and some form of leavening agent (such as yeast or baking powder), though many cakes lack these ingredients and instead rely on air bubbles in the dough to expand and cause the cake to rise. Cake is often frosted with buttercream or marzipan, and finished with piped borders and crystallized fruit.
Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings, anniversaries and birthdays. There are literally millions of cake recipes (some are bread-like and 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 so perfected and simplified that even the amateur cook may easily become an expert baker.
Cakes are broadly divided into several categories, based primarily on ingredients and cooking techniques.
* Yeast cakes are the oldest, and are very similar to yeast breads. Such cakes are often very traditional in form, and include such pastries as babka and stollen.
* Cheesecakes use mostly some form of cheese (often cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta or the like), and have very little to no flour component (though it sometimes appears in the form of a (often sweetened) crust). Cheesecakes are also very old, with evidence of honey-sweetened cakes dating back to ancient Greece.
* Sponge cakes are thought to be the first of the non-yeast-based cakes and rely primarily on trapped air in a protein matrix (generally of beaten eggs) to provide leavening, sometimes with a bit of baking powder or other chemical leaven added as insurance. Such cakes include the Italian/Jewish pan di Spagna and the French Génoise.
* Butter cakes, including the pound cake and devil's food cake, rely on the combination of butter, eggs, and sometimes baking powder to provide both lift and a moist texture.
Beyond these classifications, cakes can be classified based on their appropriate accompaniment (such as coffee cake), contents (e.g. fruitcake or flourless chocolate cake), or occasion (wedding cake, birthday cake, or Passover plava, a type of Jewish sponge cake sometimes made with matzo meal).
Cakes may be small and intended for individual consumption (for example madeleines and cupcakes). Larger cakes may be made with the intention of being sliced and served as part of a meal or social function. The cutting of a wedding cake constitutes a social ceremony in some cultures. The Ancient Roman marriage ritual of confarreatio originated in the sharing of a cake.
Particular types of cake may be associated with particular festivals, such as stollen (at Christmas), babka and simnel cake (at Easter), or mooncake.
Some varieties of cake are widely available in the form of cake mixes, wherein some of the ingredients (usually flour, sugar, flavoring, baking powder, and sometimes some form of fat) are premixed, and the cook needs add only a few extra ingredients, usually eggs, water, and sometimes vegetable oil or butter. Such mixes are available under a number of brand names, including Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines, and Pillsbury; while the diversity of represented styles is limited, cake mixes do provide an easy and readily available homemade option for cooks who are not accomplished bakers.
A finished cake is often enhanced by covering it with icing, or frosting, and toppings such as sprinkles, which are also known as "jimmies" in certain parts of the United States and "hundreds and thousands" in the United Kingdom. Frosting is usually made from powdered (icing) sugar, sometimes a fat of some sort, milk or cream, and often flavorings such as vanilla extract or cocoa powder. Some decorators use a rolled fondant icing. 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 coloring. In the late 20th century, new cake decorating products became available to the public. These include several specialized sprinkles and even methods to print pictures and transfer the image onto a cake.
Special tools are needed for more complex cake decorating, such as piping bags or syringes, and various piping tips. To use a piping bag or syringe, a piping tip is attached to the bag or syringe using a coupler. The bag or syringe is partially filled with icing which is sometimes colored. Using different piping tips and various techniques, a cake decorator can make many different designs. Basic decorating tips include open star, closed star, basketweave, round, drop flower, leaf, multi, petal, and specialty tips. Royal icing, marzipan (or a less sweet version, known as almond paste), fondant icing (also known as sugarpaste) and buttercream are used as covering icings and to create decorations. Floral sugarcraft or wired sugar flowers are an important part of cake decoration. Cakes for special occasions, such as wedding cakes, are traditionally rich fruit cakes or occasionally Madeira cakes (also known as whisked or fatless sponge), that are covered with marzipan and either iced using royal icing or sugarpaste. They are finished with piped borders (made with royal icing) and adorned with a piped message, wired sugar flowers, hand-formed fondant flowers, marzipan fruit, piped flowers, or crystallized fruits or flowers such as grapes or violets. Some famous kits are the Betty Crocker kits.
List of cakes:
* Angel food cake
* Apple cake
* Babka
* Battenberg cake
* Baumkuchen
* Birthday cake
* Black Forest cake
* Buccellato
* Bundt cake
* Butter cake
* Butterfly cake
* Carrot cake
* Cheesecake
* Chocolate cake
* Christmas cake
* Chiffon cake
* Croquembouche
* Cupcake
* Date and walnut loaf
* Depression cake
* Devil's food cake
* Eccles cake
* Erotic cake
* Fairy cake
* Fruit cake
* Garash cake
* German chocolate cake
* Gingerbread
* Gob
* Gooey butter cake
* Hot milk cake
* Ice cream cake
* Jaffa Cakes
* Kransekake
* Lamington
* Lava cake
* Mille-feuille
* Mooncake
* Orehnjača
* Pancake
* Panettone
* Pavlova
* Petit fours
* Pineapple Upside Down Cake
* Pound cake
* Queen Elizabeth cake
* Red bean cake
* Red velvet cake
* Sachertorte
* St. Honoré Cake
* Seed Cake
* Sheet cake
* Simnel cake
* Space cake
* Spice cake
* Sponge cake
* Stack cake
* Suncake
* Tarte Tatin
* Teacake
* Tiramisu
* Torta Tre Monti
* Tres leches cake
* Vanilla slice
* Victoria Sponge
* Zwetschgendatschi
A torte is a cake made with many eggs and usually ground nuts or even bread crumbs instead of or in addition to flour.[1] Tortes are Central European in origin. The word torte is derived from the German word "Torte" (pronounced [ˈtortə]), which was derived from the Italian word torta which was used to describe a round cake or bread. [2]
The most well-known of the typical tortes include the Austrian Sacher torte and Linzertorte and the many-layered Hungarian Dobos torte. But other well-known European confections are also tortes, such as the French Gateau St. Honore.
A element common to most tortes is sweet icing. (Exceptions include several French tortes, such as Gâteau Mercédès and Gâteau Alcazar.) When the cake is layered, a thick covering of icing is placed between the layers, but there is almost always icing on the tops and sides of the torte. A number of European tortes do not have layers.
In America, wedding cakes are sometimes called tortes, and their creation has developed into quite a complicated technique of its own.
Wedding cakes can be quite ornate, some with gravity-defying designs. Some American wedding cake makers have made designs that are so elaborate that they can sometimes topple before they are served. Some torte makers even use power tools to assist them in their torte sculpting.[citation needed] Elaborate tortes have dowel rods between each layer for support. Without these supporting dowels, the tortes would topple under their own weight. Other than the dowels, every part of a torte is edible, even the glassy-looking flowers which are made from molten sugar.
Wedding cakes can have multi-colored, or even multi-flavored icing or frosting. Icing is a basic mixture of whipped cream and sugar. Some torte makers add flavoring to their icing like strawberry, banana, cherry, chocolate, or even apple. They also add colors to their icing like yellow, red, blue, green, pink, etc.
The majority of the wedding cake's weight is the cake itself. The two most common cake flavors are chocolate, also known as devil's food cake, and vanilla.
Many tortes have decorations made of molten sugar attached to the torte. A different type of design is the sugar bubble, which usually acts as a centerpiece on the torte. It is made using almost the same process as glass blowing. A hollow rod is dipped into molten sugar and then spun slowly. The spinner then blows air through the hollow tube and into the sugar to create a bubble. When the bubble cools, it is placed on a cloth or pillow and the rod is tapped lightly to release the bubble.