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The cakes having butter as the main and most important ingredient are known as butter cakes. In America, butter cakes are very famous and popular. Butter cakes have been originated from pound cakes which are famous in United Kingdom. These cakes were prepared in ancient times using traditional methods. They used equal amounts of flour, sugar, butter and eggs as their ingredients to prepare a rich and heavy cake. The 19th century came with the invention and discovery of leavening agents which were natural as well as synthetically prepared and baking powder. Their invention led to a change in the traditional methods of making and preparation of cakes as their introduction made it possible for us to make fluffier and lighter cakes than before.

Butter cakes are a perfect blend of traditional and modern ingredients. The traditional method of making butter cakes involved a creaming method. In this method sugar and butter are beaten until enough number of air bubbles done get incorporated into the butter and it does not become fluffy. Slowly and gradually, eggs are put. Now an emulsion is created. Now all the ingredients are added one by one, first wet and then dry. If butter cakes are stored in refrigerators they get stiffened, dried and most importantly they loosse their flavor. All this makes them unsuitable and unfit for any kind of filling or decoration by frosting. The ingredients needed or used for frosting must be refrigerated in advance only. Some of the ingredients for frosting are pastry cream and cream cheese frosting. Butter cakes are better off if they are kept at room temperature as their moistness and richness is not lost unlike when they are refrigerated.

Once a cake is made it needs to be decorating which enhances its beauty. A cake is decorated by sprinkling toppings, covering it with icing or frosting. Toppings are also known as Jimmies in the United States. Powdered sugar, fat in some form, cream or milk and additives which have different flavors like cocoa powder or vanilla extract are usually used to make frosting. A fondant icing in the rolled form is also used by some of the cake decorators. In commercial bakeries, they use lard as a supplement for fat. The lard is whipped and beaten so that enough air bubbles are formed so that the cake becomes lighter and fluffier. This also helps in icing the cake.

The icing can be easily spread. People who make cake at home use butter, lard or margarine. The jimmies they use are ground sugar, oils with food flavoring and coloring. Now a day’s cake decoration has become more important. People have started using special tools that have been disegned to decorate the cake. Some of the tools are syringes, piping bags, piping tips etc. These tools help the cake decorator to decorate the cakes in different styles and designs. This can be done by having knowledge about how to using different tips and the various techniques involved in making different and varied designs.

Cakes can be described or categorised on the basis of their different physical forms. Cakes can vary in sizes according to the number of people they are catering. They can be very small catering just to one person or they can be as big as wedding cake catering to hundred’s of people in a social gathering.

Some of the common cake shapes we are going to discuss now.

A cake baked in a pan that is flat and rectangular in shape is known as a sheet cake. The size of the pan may vary according to the number of people the cake is being made for. The pans used for making sheet cakes are known as jelly roll pans or sheet pans. In United States, the sheet cakes are freely available at all grocery stores as they are not very expensive. Sheet cakes are single layered cakes which are beautifully frosted and are well decorated with crytallised fruits on the surface that is flat on the top of the sheet cake.

These sheet cakes are served at birthday parties and can be offered in office at lunch too. Sheet cakes can be made with vanilla or chocolate flavors as these flavors are the most common ones. Other flavors can also be used depending on individual choice. Additional ingredients or garnishings like nuts, coconut or chocolate chips can be added to the cake batter initially or can be grated and sprinkled on the flat ckae surface once it is complete. If sheet cakes split they then become layer cakes.

A cake consisting of many layers one on top of the other are popularly known as layer cakes. The multiple layers of the layer cakes are held or jammed together by a fillin of different types of jams or preservatives or by frosting. Mostly all cake recipies can be converted into layer cakes. The most common cakes that can be made into layer cakes are sponge cakes and butter cakes. Layer cakes are often not decorated as the beauty of the cake is the visibility of the different layers of the cake itself. But layer cakes can be decorated by frosting if people wish to. Most of the cakes made for weddings are delicious layer cakes which are beautifully decorated. Carrot cakes, black forest cakes, red velvet cakes and german chocolate cakes are popular combinations for layer cakes having an ultimate combination of different flavors.

A fairy cake, or more commonly known as a cup cake in United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa, is a cake which is so small that it is just served to one person. These are like muffins and are generally baked in a thin paper cup, pottery cups, molds or ramekins, small enough so that it serves only one person. Frosting and sprinkling of other cake decorations are also done on cup cakes to make them look more attractive and delicious. A variant of cup cake is butterfly cake. Butterfly cakes can be made of any flavors.

Cakes are of different flavors and varities. They can be classified into different categories or groups depending on the ingrdients used to make the cake and the cooking techniques used.

One of the oldest types of cakes are the yeast cakes. They are almost like yeast breads. That is their similarity is very high. These are considered to be very traditional and include pastries of babka and stollen for example.

The form of food that is present in practically all happy and joyful occasions are cakes. Cakes are a part of birthday parties, weddings anniversaries and are a part of the dessert circle as well. There is always a social ceremony associated when a wedding cake is cut in most of the cultures. For instance, a famous marriage ritual in Ancient Rome got originated by the sharing and cutting of a cake. The name of the ritual is Confarreatio. One of the most famous cakes is a type of sponge cake which is made by the Jewish, sometimes along with the matzo meal.

The name given to this cake is Passover plava. Cakes are usually sweet. They are either baked; fluffy cakes or they are creamy. Normally most of the cakes have flour as one of the major ingredient which may be of different kind for different cakes. Other important ingredient is the binding agent, which keeps the flour together and prevents the cake from breaking. Some of the binding agents used are eggs, starch, vegans. Cakes are also a combination of some liquids like water, fruit juice or milk, fats, flavoring agents and leavening agent. Butter, fruit puree or margarine are some of the kinds of fats that canbe added in the cake. Flavoring agents vary according to the kind of cake you are heading to prepare. Baking powder or yeast are some forms of the leavening agents which are used.

Some cakes rise or expand because of the presence of air bubbles present in the dough. Many cakes rely on the above mentioned mechanism as they lack most of the ingredients. Cakes are decorated beautifully depending on the occasion it is being served at. Mostly cakes are frosted with marzipan or buttercream. Some cakes have their finishing done with fruits which are crytallised. The most common being cherries and strawberries. But the fruits vary according to the type of cake being made.

Cakes are being made since ages. Many people even today use their grandmother’s cake recipes. There are numerous recipies of cakes, some of which are new and some of which are very old. Now making a cake is not a difficult and complicated procedure. Cake recipies have become so easy and simple that anyone can make a cake in no time. But there was a time when cake making used to take a very long time and also required the involvement of a lot of labor, especially at the step of whisking egg foams. Now a days the baking equipment have also become so simplified that even a small kid can make a cake in parents guidance.

Cakes are cut not only at weddings or birthdays but festivals are also special occasions when cakes are cut and shared with your loved ones. Specific cakes are associated with different and particular festivals. For instance, at Easter simnel cake or the babka cakes are cut. During this time these are the most commonly cut cakes. During Christmas stollen is one of the favourites.

A type of a sponge cake roll is a swiss roll or commonly known as jelly roll. This is a very thin cake made of sugar, flour and eggs. All of these are mixed together and baked in a sheet pan, which is a baking tray, shallow and rectangular in shape. Once the cake is ready and is baked fully it is carefully removed from the pan. Butter cream and jam is spread on the cake. The cake is then rolled and is cut neatly into a number of circular pieces. These slices are then ready to be served. The swiss roll cake originated in Central Europe and not in Switzerland as the name indicates. It is traditional for the Hungarians, Austrians and the Germans.

Another type of a dessert cake is the bundt cake. It is pronounced as bunt cake as the “d” is silent. It is assumed that the bundt cake may have originated from the famous german cake Gugelhupf because both have the common ring shape.

Lately special and unique cake flour has been discovered. This cake flour has very high gluten to starch ratio. This soecial flour is made soft, very low molecular weight protein wheat which is very fine textured. Cake flour helps in making cakes which have less dense texture and are lighter and fluffier. This cake flour is strongly bleached and is anyday better than other flours as this provides better quality cakes. It is therefore mandatory or preferred in cakes like angel food cake, where the cakes need to have very light texture and needs to be very soft. Cake’s texture can also be manipulated by adding certain additives like baking powder, corn starch etc.

Other flours which are normally used for other purposes also can be made to make light textured and light weight cakes by addition of the above mentioned additives. But in recipes where the cakes need to be firm and where dense texture is required the normal flour is particularly specified. A less sweet version of almond paste also known as marzipan is used for decorating the cakes. Fondant icing also commonly known as the sugar paste along with butter cream is used as the icing for covering and decorating the cakes. Another important part of decoration of a cake that cannot be ignored is the decoration using flowers. Wired sugar flowers also popularly known as floral sugar craft are used for beautifying the cakes. These flowers definitely add to the beauty of the otherwise very delicious and yummy cake.

Madeira cakes also very famous and popular as fatless sponge cakes or whisked cakes use marzipan or sugar paste as icing for decorating the cake. The finishing of the cake is done with borders which are piped. These borders are made of sugar paste or royal icing. A message is then written on the cake for your dear one with pipings. Hand made fondant flowers, piped flowers, crystallised flowers or fruits, wired sugar flowers, marzipan fruits and flowers of grapes and violets are used to decorate the cake.