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.
Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water, and shortening that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. The word "pastries" suggests many kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder, and eggs. Small tarts and other sweet baked products are called pastries as a synecdoche. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
A wedding cake is the traditional cake served at wedding receptions following dinner. In some parts of England, the wedding cake is served at a wedding breakfast; the 'wedding breakfast' does not mean the meal will be held in the morning, but at a time following the ceremony on the same day. In modern Western culture, the cake is usually on display and served to guests at the reception. Traditionally, wedding cakes were made to bring good luck to all guests and the couple. Nowadays, however, they are more of a centerpiece to the wedding and are not always even served to the guests. Some cakes are built with only a single edible tier for the bride and groom to share, but this is rare since the cost difference between fake and real tiers is minimal.
A king cake, also known as a three kings cake, is a cake associated in many countries with Epiphany. Its form and ingredients are variable, but in most cases a fève such as a figurine, often said to represent the Christ Child, is hidden inside. After the cake is cut, whoever gets the fève wins a prize. Modern fèves can be made of other materials, and can represent various objects and people.
A quinceañera is a celebration of a girl's 15th birthday that is common in Mexican and other Latin American cultures. The girl celebrating her 15th birthday is a quinceañera. In Latin America, the term quinceañera is reserved solely for the honoree; in English, primarily in the United States, the term is used to refer to the celebrations and honors surrounding the special occasion.
A cupcake (AmE), fairy cake (BrE), or bun (IrE) is a small cake designed to serve one person, which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminum cup. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations such as fruit and candy may be applied.
Red velvet cake is traditionally a red, crimson, or scarlet-colored layer cake, layered with ermine icing. Traditional recipes do not use food coloring, with the red color possibly due to non-Dutched, anthocyanin-rich cocoa, and possibly due to the usage of brown sugar, formerly called red sugar.
A mille-feuille, also known by the names Napoleon in North America, vanilla slice in the United Kingdom, and custard slice, is a French dessert made of puff pastry layered with pastry cream. Its modern form was influenced by improvements made by Marie-Antoine Carême.
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.
In Christianity, a name day is a tradition in many countries of Europe and the Americas, among other parts of Christendom. It consists of celebrating a day of the year that is associated with one's baptismal name, which is normatively that of a biblical character or other saint. Where they are popular, individuals celebrate both their name day and their birthday in a given year.
A butter cake is a cake in which one of the main ingredients is butter. Butter cake is baked with basic ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and leavening agents such as baking powder or baking soda. It is considered one of the quintessential cakes in American baking. Butter cake originated from the English pound cake, which traditionally used equal amounts of butter, flour, sugar, and eggs to bake a heavy, rich cake.
There are many and varied customs associated with the celebration of birthdays around the world.
Cake decorating is the art of decorating a cake for special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, baby showers, national or religious holidays, or as a promotional item.
A birthday is the anniversary of the birth of a person, or figuratively of an institution. Birthdays of people are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with birthday gifts, birthday cards, a birthday party, or a rite of passage.
Sponge cake is a light cake made with eggs, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.
Mazurek is a variety of cake baked in Poland for Easter. It has a flat shape and is very sweet.
Ang ku kueh, also known as red tortoise cake, is a small round or oval-shaped Chinese pastry with soft, sticky glutinous rice flour skin wrapped around a sweet central filling. It is molded to resemble a tortoise shell and is presented resting on a square piece of banana leaf. As suggested by its name, red tortoise cakes are traditionally red in color and has a sticky, chewy texture when eaten. Red tortoise cakes are shaped like tortoise shells because the Chinese traditionally believed that eating tortoises would bring longevity to those who are eating it and bring about good fortune and prosperity. Considered to be auspicious items, these sweet pastries are especially prepared during important festivals such as Chinese New Year as offerings to the Chinese deities.
A pop out cake, popout cake, jump out cake, or surprise cake is a large object made to serve as a surprise for a celebratory occasion. Externally, such a construction appears to be an oversized cake, and sometimes actually is, at least in part. However, the construction is usually cardboard. The inside of the object has a space for someone, traditionally an attractive young woman, to crouch and hide until the moment of surprise, when she then stands up and comes out of the cake.
![The Birthday Cake by 19th-century German genre painter Pancraz Korle [de]. Pancraz Korle Die Geburtstagstorte.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Pancraz_K%C3%B6rle_Die_Geburtstagstorte.jpg/170px-Pancraz_K%C3%B6rle_Die_Geburtstagstorte.jpg)
