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. The most common ingredients
include flour, sugar, eggs, fat (such as butter, oil, or margarine), a
liquid, and a leavening agent, such as baking soda or baking powder.
Common additional ingredients include dried, candied, or fresh fruit,
nuts, cocoa, and extracts such as vanilla, with numerous substitutions
for the primary ingredients. Cakes can also be filled with fruit
preserves, nuts, or dessert sauces (like custard, jelly, cooked fruit,
whipped cream, or syrups),iced with buttercream or other icings, and
decorated with marzipan, piped borders, or candied fruit. Cake is often
served as a celebratory dish on ceremonial occasions, such as weddings,
anniversaries, and birthdays. There are countless cake recipes; some are
bread-like, some are rich and elaborate, and many are centuries old.
Cake making is no longer a complicated procedure; while at one time
considerable labor went into cake making (particularly the whisking of
egg foams), baking equipment and directions have been simplified so that
even the most amateur of cooks may bake a cake.