Cake is a popular dessert across the globe. 140 million on cakes alone in 2016. An article by 30th birthday cake Nibble notes that the ancient Egyptians were the first society to figure out that the natural yeast floating around in the environment was the key to making their dough rise. The first cakes were descendants of yeasted bread risen on hot stones.
Like other regional cuisines and dishes, cakes are shaped by the cultures and ingredients that surround them. Here are some of the most popular cakes and what makes them unique! Red velvet cake has endured as one of the most popular cakes in the United States. The Washington Post notes the cake’s name is a descriptor of its soft, velvety texture.
The color, which is not as commonly observed in other cake types, was originally derived from raw cocoa powder. Mental Floss reports that the Adams Extract company used the authorization as a way to promote its red food coloring. The pineapple upside-down cake is a retro baking classic. According to Alto Hartley, societies have cooked with cast iron skillets over open flames for hundreds of years. For a sweet treat, early societies would add sliced fruit to the bottom of the pan, pour on the batter, and flip the cake over once it was finished. This tart cake is the perfect addition for family gatherings and holidays. Traditionally, a sour cherry brandy was used to soak the Black Forest cake.
Typically, Black Forest cake is made by soaking the chocolate sponge in sugar syrup flavored with cherry brandy and topped with whipped cream. The German variation of Black Forest cake uses buttercream, while Austrians make theirs with whipped cream, gelatin, and cornstarch. Cupcakes are a uniquely American dessert. The Hummingbird Bakery reports that the first reference to the dessert may have been in a cookbook from 1796, calling it “a cake baked in small cups. Another possibility is that cupcakes may have been referred to as a measurement technique memorized in volumes — similar to the pound cake. The first cupcake bakery, Sprinkles Cupcake, opened in 2005, and Sprinkles now sells over 45,000 cupcakes daily.
Cupcakes in general come in almost every flavor as traditional cakes, so you can customize your batch to your liking. According to the Oh Danish Bakery, coffee cake is likely a descendant of the Danish tradition of eating sweetbreads while drinking morning coffee. After coffee was introduced to the European continent in the 1600s, Scandinavians and Germans started pairing coffee with sweetbreads stuffed with nuts, fruits, and spices. Dutch and German immigrants brought the “coffee cake” to the United States in the late 1800s. In the 1870s, bakers in New York, New Jersey, and Delaware started adapting the coffee cake into more of a pastry than bread.