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Although there are many different varieties of cakes and numerous ways to classify them, skilled bakers categorise cakes based on the ingredients and the manner of combining them. Home bakers frequently divide cakes into categories based on flavour, such as chocolate cakes, fruit cakes, and so forth. This is useful when attempting to make a food selection but less so when attempting to comprehend the best way to make a cake. The final texture (and colour, if it's a yellow or white cake) will differ depending on how the batter is made. Cakes are influenced by the cultures and ingredients around them, much like other regional foods and dishes are. Here are some of the most well-known cakes and what makes them special.
Butter Cake: A butter cake is any cake whose instructions start with "cream butter and sugar." Following the creaming, you add eggs to slightly aerate the batter, flour (and occasionally additional liquid, such as milk), which gives it shape and texture, and baking powder or baking soda, which guarantees that it will rise in the oven. Within the butter cake family, there are several different types of cake batter, including chocolate, white, yellow, and marble. The colouring of white and yellow cakes often relies on whether they contain whole eggs, extra egg yolks (for yellow cake), or egg whites only (white cake).
Pound Cake: A related dessert to butter cake is pound cake. It is so named because each ingredient can be measured out in one pound increments: one pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. You'll find leaveners like baking soda and baking powder in some pound cake recipes, bringing the batter well into the butter-cake fold. In some pound cake recipes, the eggs are separated, and the egg whites are whisked and folded into the batter to leaven it. These cakes are typically served plain or with a basic glaze or water icing on top and have relatively mild flavours. A loaf or Bundt pan is typically used to prepare pound cakes. The pound cake is a common base for many coffee cakes, sour cream cakes, and fruit crumb cakes.
Sponge Cake: Any recipes with a lot of beaten egg or egg whites but no baking soda or baking powder? That is a sponge cake, of which there are numerous varieties. which, depending on where you are, will go by different names.
Genoise Cake: A sponge cake known as genoise is popular in Italy and France; it is made by beating whole eggs with sugar until they are thick and ribbony, adding flour (and occasionally butter), and baking the mixture. Genoise tastes delicious when baked in a round cake pan with just frosting, but it can also be baked in a jelly-roll pan and rolled up into a roulade. Genoise doesn't have a particularly strong flavour on its own, but it is frequently used to make layered or rolled cakes when a texture other than butter cake is preferred. Genoise cake layers are always saturated with flavoured syrup to give flavour and moisture. They are frequently sliced into thin horizontal layers and layered with rich frosting.
Biscuit Cake: Another sort of sponge cake that contains both egg whites and yolks is a biscuit cake, which is usually pronouced bees-kwee in French. Unlike genoise, however, the egg whites and yolks are whisked separately before being folded back into the batter. This results in a light batter that keeps its shape better after mixing but is drier than a genoise. This is why it's frequently employed for piped shapes like ladyfingers. It produces a highly chewy sponge cake when baked in a tube pan similar to an angel food cake, which was well-liked in the early 20th century but has since lost favour. The traditional Passover sponge cake is still recognised, however in a somewhat modified version where potato starch and matzoh cake meal are used in place of the flour.
Angel Food Cake: Angel food cakes are created exclusively from egg whites, not yolks. Before the flour is gently incorporated, the egg whites and sugar are whisked until very stiff. This produces a snowy-white, airy, and delicate cake that pairs nicely with fruit. Due to their generally high sugar content and lack of egg yolks, angel food cakes tend to have a spongy, chewy texture. As angel food cakes would collapse if cooled upside-down in the pan or if taken from the pan while still warm, they are baked in nonstick two-piece tube pans and cooled by being inverted. Also, since butter is not used, the cake is fat-free.
Carrot Cake: Carrot cake uses the same leavening techniques as butter cake, but uses a neutral oil such vegetable or canola oil in place of butter. Because of this, it will keep a little longer than butter cakes but may occasionally turn out greasy. The procedure is essentially the same; instead of beating butter and sugar first, you whisk eggs and sugar first before adding oil.
Red Velvet Cake: Even though oil is frequently used in place of butter while making red velvet cake, it is really a butter cake. In order to achieve the distinctive red velvet flavour, cocoa is also added to the cake batter. Originally, the ruddy-hued crumb was created by the reaction of buttermilk with the raw cocoa that was commonly accessible at the time red velvet was invented. These days, food colouring is used to dye them more frequently. According to folklore, a chef at the Waldorf-Astoria created the red velvet cake for the first time in the 1920s, earning it the nickname "the $200 cake."
