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 chocolate chip cookie is a drop cookie that features chocolate chips or chocolate morsels as its distinguishing ingredient. Chocolate chip cookies are claimed to have originated in the United States in 1938, when Ruth Graves Wakefield chopped up a Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bar and added the chopped chocolate to a cookie recipe; however, historical recipes for grated or chopped chocolate cookies exist prior to 1938 by various other authors.
Hungarian or Magyar cuisine is the cuisine characteristic of the nation of Hungary, and its primary ethnic group, the Magyars. Hungarian cuisine has been described as being the spiciest cuisine in Europe. This can largely be attributed to the use of their piquant native spice, Hungarian paprika, in many of their dishes. A mild version of the spice, Hungarian sweet paprika, is commonly used as an alternative. Traditional Hungarian dishes are primarily based on meats, seasonal vegetables, fruits, bread, and dairy products.
A chocolate brownie, or simply a brownie, is a chocolate baked confection. Brownies come in a variety of forms and may be either fudgy or cakey, depending on their density. Brownies often, but not always, have a glossy "skin" on their upper crust. They may also include nuts, frosting, chocolate chips, or other ingredients. A variation made with brown sugar and vanilla rather than chocolate in the batter is called a blond brownie or blondie. The brownie was developed in the United States at the end of the 19th century and popularized there during the first half of the 20th century.
Cheesecake is a dessert made with a soft fresh cheese, eggs, and sugar. It may have a crust or base made from crushed cookies, graham crackers, pastry, or sometimes sponge cake. Cheesecake may be baked or unbaked, and is usually refrigerated.
Devil's food cake is a moist, rich chocolate layer cake.
Apple cakes are cakes in which apples feature as a main flavour and ingredient. Such cakes incorporate apples in a variety of forms, including diced, pureed, or stewed, and can include common additions like raisins, nuts, and 'sweet' spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg. They are a common and popular dessert worldwide, thanks to millennia of apple cultivation in Asia and Europe, and their widespread introduction and propagation throughout the Americas during the Columbian Exchange and colonisation. As a result, apple desserts, including cakes, have a huge number of variations.
A Swiss roll, jelly roll, roll cake, cream roll, roulade or Swiss log is a type of rolled sponge cake filled with whipped cream, jam, icing, or any type of filling. The origins of the term are unclear; in spite of the name "Swiss roll", the cake is believed to have originated elsewhere in Central Europe, possibly Austria or Slovenia. It appears to have been invented in the nineteenth century, along with Battenberg cake, doughnuts, and Victoria sponge. In the U.S., commercial snack-sized versions of the cake are sold with the brand names Ho Hos, Yodels, Swiss Cake Rolls, and others. A type of roll cake called Yule log is traditionally served at Christmas.
Chocolate cake or chocolate gâteau is a cake flavored with melted chocolate, cocoa powder, or both. It can also have other ingredients such as fudge, vanilla creme, and other sweeteners.
A Boston cream pie is a cake with a cream filling. The dessert acquired its name when cakes and pies were baked in the same pans, and the words were used interchangeably. In the late 19th century, this type of cake was variously called a "cream pie", a "chocolate cream pie", or a "custard cake".
Molten chocolate cake is a French dessert that consists of a chocolate cake with a liquid chocolate core. It is named for that molten center, and it is also known as mi-cuit au chocolat, chocolat coulant ("flowing"), chocolate lava cake, or simply lava cake. It should not be confused with fondant au chocolat, a recipe that contains little flour, but much chocolate and butter, hence melting on the palate.
Flourless chocolate cake is a dense cake made from an aerated chocolate custard. The first documented form of the cake was seen in Ferrara, Italy, though some forms of the cake have myths surrounding their origins. The dessert contains no gluten which makes it acceptable for those with celiac disease, gluten-free diets, and during religious holidays in which gluten and grains are not permitted.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chocolate:
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.
Bumpy Cake was created by Sanders Confectionery, of Detroit, Michigan, in the early 1900s and was known as "The Sanders Devil's Food Buttercream Cake" when it was first introduced. It is made of chocolate devil's food cake that is topped with rich buttercream bumps, and then draped in a chocolate ganache. Now more than a century old, this is a classic confection.
The old-fashioned doughnut is a term used for a variety of cake doughnut prepared in the shape of a ring with a cracked surface and tapered edges around it. While many early cookbooks included recipes for "old-fashioned donuts" that were made with yeast, the distinctive cake doughnuts sold in doughnut shops are made with chemical leavener and may have crisper texture compared to other styles of cake doughnuts. The cracked surface is usually glazed or coated with sugar.
Pie in American cuisine has roots in English cuisine and has evolved over centuries to adapt to American cultural tastes and ingredients. The creation of flaky pie crust shortened with lard is credited to American innovation.
