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 doughnut or donut is a type of pastry made from leavened fried dough. It is popular in many countries and is prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty vendors. Doughnut is the traditional spelling, while donut is the simplified version; the terms are used interchangeably.
A pancake, also known as hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack, is a flat cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based batter that may contain eggs, milk, and butter, and then cooked on a hot surface such as a griddle or frying pan. It is a type of batter bread. Archaeological evidence suggests that pancakes were probably eaten in prehistoric societies.
Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as ingredients such as fats or flavourings.
Soda bread is a variety of quick bread made in many cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate is used as a leavening agent instead of yeast. The basic ingredients of soda bread are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The buttermilk contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other ingredients can be added, such as butter, egg, raisins, or nuts. Quick breads can be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time and labor needed for kneaded yeast breads.
An English muffin is a small, round and flat yeast-leavened bread which is commonly 4 in (10 cm) round and 1.5 in (4 cm) tall. It is generally split horizontally and served toasted. In North America, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, it is frequently eaten with sweet or savoury toppings such as butter, fruit jam, honey, eggs, sausage, bacon, or cheese. English muffins are an essential ingredient in eggs Benedict and a variety of breakfast sandwiches derived from it, such as the McMuffin.
Lavash is a thin flatbread usually leavened, traditionally baked in a tandoor or on a sajj, and common to the cuisines of South Caucasus, West Asia, and the areas surrounding the Caspian Sea. Lavash is one of the most widespread types of bread in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. The traditional recipe can be adapted to the modern kitchen by using a griddle or wok instead of the tonir.
A crumpet is a small griddle bread made from an unsweetened batter of water or milk, flour, and yeast, popular in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.
A cupcake, 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.
A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a wheat-based food additive.
The crempog is a Welsh pancake made with flour, buttermilk, eggs, vinegar and salted butter. Traditionally made on bakestones or griddles, the crempog is one of the oldest recipes in Wales. They are also known as ffroes, pancos and cramoth and are normally served thickly piled into a stack and spread with butter. It is traditionally served at celebrations in Wales, such as Shrove Tuesday and birthdays.
In the United States, a biscuit is a variety of baked bread with a firm, dry exterior and a soft, crumbly interior. In Canada it sometimes also refers to this or a traditional European biscuit. It is made with baking powder as a leavening agent rather than yeast, and at times is called a baking powder biscuit to differentiate it from other types. Like other forms of bread, a biscuit is often served with butter or other condiments, flavored with other ingredients, or combined with other types of food to make sandwiches or other dishes.
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.
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. 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.
A banana cake is a cake prepared using banana as a primary ingredient and typical cake ingredients. It can be prepared in various manners, including as a layer cake, as muffins and as cupcakes. Steamed banana cake is found in Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian and Vietnamese cuisine. In the Philippines, the term "banana cake" refers to banana bread introduced during the American colonial period of the Philippines.
The dough
is cooked in rings
and then cooled
before it is split
and finally toasted.
