Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings or birthday parties. The bride and bridegroom are the first to eat their wedding cake, often serving each other a piece in their fingers. For birthdays, a frosted (iced) cake, often with inscriptions in frosting and figural decorations, is covered with candles, which are blown out after the celebrant makes a wish.
The difference between a cake and a biscuit is that a cake has a higher level of moisture than the average moisture content of air, whereas a biscuit has a lower level of moisture than air. Hence, a cake will go hard when left in air and a biscuit will go soft.
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Techniques
Cakes can be made using several different basic techniques:
Creaming method - butter and sugar are creamed together before the rest of the ingredients are gradually added.
Melt-and-mix - dry ingredients are mixed together and then melted butter and other liquids are added to complete the cake.
Rubbing method - butter is rubbed into the dry ingredients before the liquid is added.
'All-in-together' - the dry ingredients and shortening are placed in the food processer and liquid is gradually added.
Sponge-making - eggs and sugar are whipped to a froth and flour is carefully mixed in. No raising agent or fat is used in this method and it takes great skill to make a light sponge.
A finished cake is often enhanced by frosting (icing) and/or toppings such as snickers bars.
Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings or birthdays.
Cakes often rely on beating eggs and addition of leavening agents, such as baking powder, to produce the air bubbles in the cake.
Prepackaged cake mixes were first introduced to American grocery store shelves in the 1940s by companies including Betty Crocker and General Mills, who touted the use of their product as more convenient and resistant to human error than the process of baking a cake from scratch.
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