Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread, but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferred "from the surface of cakes, cookies, and pieces of bread to their center. As heat travels through, it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods and more with a firm dry crust and a softer center". Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods simultaneously, or one after the other. Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit.
Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.
A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, doughnuts, bagels, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who wish to consume the baked goods on the premises. Confectionery items are also made in most bakeries throughout the world.
"Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, Baker’s Man", "Pat-a-Cake", "Patty-cake" or "Pattycake" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6486.
Gooey butter cake is a type of cake traditionally made in St. Louis, Missouri. It is a flat and dense cake made with wheat cake flour, butter, sugar, and eggs, typically near an inch tall, and dusted with powdered sugar. While sweet and rich, it is somewhat firm, and is able to be cut into pieces similarly to a brownie. Gooey butter cake is generally served as a type of coffee cake and not as a formal dessert cake. There are two distinct variants of the cake: the original St. Louis, MO Bakers' gooey butter and a cream cheese and commercial yellow cake mix variant. The original St. Louis, MO Bakers' gooey butter is believed to have originated in the 1930s. It was made with a yeast-raised sweet dough on the bottom.
Stollen is a fruit bread of nuts, spices, and dried or candied fruit, coated with powdered sugar or icing sugar and often containing marzipan. It is a traditional German Christmas bread. During the Christmas season the cake-like loaves are called Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen.
Kuchen, the German word for cake, is used in other languages as the name for several different types of savory or sweet desserts, pastries, and gateaux. Most Kuchen have eggs, flour and sugar as common ingredients while also, but not always, including some fat. In Germany it is a common tradition to invite friends over to one's house or to a cafe between noon and evening to drink coffee and eat Kuchen.
Potato bread is a form of bread in which potato flour or potato replaces a portion of the regular wheat flour. It is cooked in a variety of ways, including baking it on a hot griddle or pan, or in an oven. It may be leavened or unleavened, and may have a variety of other ingredients baked into it. The ratio of potato to wheat flour varies significantly from recipe to recipe, with some recipes having a majority of potato, and others having a majority of wheat flour. Some recipes call for mashed potatoes, with others calling for dehydrated potato flakes. It is available as a commercial product in many countries, with similar variations in ingredients, cooking methods, and other variables.
Flammekueche, or tarte flambée (French), is a speciality of the region of Alsace, German-speaking Moselle, Baden and the Palatinate. It is composed of bread dough rolled out very thinly in the shape of a rectangle or oval, which is covered with fromage blanc or crème fraîche, thinly sliced onions and lardons.
Parkin is a gingerbread cake traditionally made with oatmeal and black treacle, which originated in northern England. Often associated with Yorkshire, it is widespread and popular elsewhere, notably in Lancashire. Parkin is baked to a hard cake but with resting becomes moist and even sometimes sticky. There are regional differences, for example in Hull and East Yorkshire, it has a drier, more biscuit-like texture than in other areas whereas in Lancashire it is generally made with golden syrup rather than the treacle used elsewhere. Parkin is traditionally eaten on Guy Fawkes Night, 5 November, and when celebrating 'Yorkshire Day' on 1st August. But is also enjoyed throughout the winter months. It is baked commercially throughout Yorkshire, but is mainly a domestic product in other areas.
Johnnycake, also known as journey cake, johnny bread, hoecake, shawnee cake or spider cornbread, is a cornmeal flatbread, a type of batter bread. An early American staple food, it is prepared on the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Jamaica. The food originates from the indigenous people of North America. It is still eaten in the West Indies, Dominican Republic, Saint Croix, The Bahamas, Colombia, Bermuda, Curaçao and Puerto Rico as well as in the United States and Canada.
Bread is a staple food of Finland. It is served with almost every meal and many different types are produced domestically.
Blue cake is a flaky pastry that is a specialty of the Frutig valley in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. It consists only of puff pastry with no filling or other ingredients. Despite its name, it is not blue.
Nordic bread culture has existed in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden from prehistoric times through to the present. It is often characterized by the usage of rye flour, barley flour, a mixture of nuts, seeds, and herbs, and varying densities depending on the region. Often, bread is served as an accompaniment to various recipes and meals. Nordic breads are often seasoned with an assortment of different spices and additives, such as caraway seeds, orange zest, anise, and honey.
Due to its centuries-old history as a major port town the cuisine of Hamburg is very diversified and sapid as ingredients’ supply was safe. Until the 20th century the cuisine of Hamburg was predominantly characterized by the extensive choice of different kinds of fish from the river Elbe and the nearby Baltic Sea. The region of Vierlande supplied Hamburg with fresh vegetables. Fruit came from the area Altes Land and until industrialization the neighbourhood of Wilhelmsburg was considered the ‘milk isle’ of Hamburg. International trade in the Port of Hamburg made spices and exotic nutrition items from India and South America available since the 16th century which were soon incorporated into civic kitchens. On this basis the cuisine of Hamburg developed which regrettably lost some of its characteristics nowadays due to the supraregional harmonization of the North German cuisine. But due to its high economic importance Hamburg does feature many internationally recognized gourmet restaurants from which 11 were repeatedly awarded with a Michelin star in 2010.
Swabian cuisine is native to Swabia, a region in southwestern Germany comprising great parts of Württemberg and the Bavarian part of Swabia. Swabian cuisine has a reputation for being rustic, but rich and hearty. Fresh egg pastas, soups, and sausages are among Swabia's best-known types of dishes, and Swabian cuisine tends to require broths or sauces; dishes are rarely "dry".
A spit cake is a European-styled cake made with layers of dough or batter deposited, one at a time, onto a tapered cylindrical rotating spit. The dough is baked by an open fire or a special oven, rotisserie-style. Generally, spit cakes are associated with celebrations such as weddings and Christmas. The spit can be dipped in a thin dough, or the dough can be poured or rolled on the spit.
Breudher, also known as Brueder or Bloeder, is a traditional Sri Lankan Dutch Burgher buttery yeast cake, baked in a fluted mould. A variation, Bleuda, Kueh Bleuda or Kue Bludder is also found in the Malacca Dutch Eurasian community and in Kochin, a city in the south-west of India.
