Types Of Cakes

A cake is often described as a sweet dish, often baked, that represents celebration and happiness. For centuries people have been making cakes on special occasions to represent their joys.

Today however cake is not only just a symbol of celebration but also a common dessert followed by a meal. As baking a cake today is simple and easy as compared to the past when there was no such thing as electric beaters, ovens etc.

A typical cake generally includes: sugar to give it a sweet taste, yeast or baking powder or bi carbonate of soda as the rising material, flour and eggs as binding materials and butter to make it moist.

As far as the types of cakes are concerned, there are nearly hundreds of different varieties of cakes today, each with a distinct taste, texture and flavor. But if we are to classify cakes into different types then cakes can be simply divided into two main types:

• Foam Cakes

  These cakes are generally called the low fat cake as they include no or vey less amount of butter (fat) in them. These cakes are usually light, fluffy and slightly moist if some butter is used.

  They include a large quantity of eggs and in some varieties even the flour is not used. A liquid such as milk or a fruit juice or even melted jam is usually a component of these cakes.
  
  The foam cakes include sponge cakes, chiffon cakes, angel food cakes etc.

• Butter Cakes

  These cakes are also called the cream cakes. These cakes include a lot of butter and are very moist and firm. Eggs are also used but their quantity is less as compared to the foam cakes.
  
  The butter cakes are usually topped with thick icings or are heaped with whipped cream. There are many varieties of butter cakes but mostly the birthday cakes are the butter cakes. Examples include: devil’s food cake, marble cake, butter cake, chocolate mud cake etc.

The foam cakes and the butter cakes can be made into various delicious varieties some of which are given below:

The Sponge Cakes

Sponge cakes are light and fluffy cakes which are quite simple to make. They can be called as the foam cakes as a very less quantity of butter is used in their making. In fact in most of its recipes butter is not used at all and if used, is added in a very small quantity only to make the cake slightly moist.

A typical sponge cake simply includes eggs, self raising flour, milk and some cream or jam for frosting but no butter. 

There are two types of sponge cakes:

• The sponge cakes in which the eggs are separated, the whites are beaten separately and the yolks are beaten with sugar. The two are then combined together using a metal spoon.
• The genoise sponge cakes in which the eggs are not separated but are beaten a whole with sugar. The geneoise sponge cakes include a little vegetable oil or butter, so are moist.

The Angel Food Cakes

The Angel food cakes are totally fat less.

They do not include even a trace of butter in them hence they are the foam cakes. The angel food cakes are made of egg whites, sugar, cream and flour. The egg yolks are not used at all.

The sugar in this cake is added not only to make it sweet but also to stabilize the egg white proteins and to counter balance the effect of flour and the whites.

The angel food cakes are very light and fluffy and cannot be stored for long and must be eaten fresh.

The Butter Cake

Butter cake is, as the name suggests, a simple variety of the type butter cakes.

This cake is very moist and includes a large quantity of butter.

A typical butter cake recipe includes caster sugar, 2-3 lightly beaten eggs, and a lot of butter (125-130gm), self raising flour and milk.

The butter cake is topped with a thick icing of butter cream made of butter and icing sugar.

Meringue Cakes

These cakes are topped with self baked light meringues which are made of egg whites and sugar.

Typically a light foam cake, such as a simple fruit cake or a chiffon cake is topped with meringue.