So according to Merriam Webster bread is: a usually baked and leavened food made of a mixture whose basic constituent is flour or meal
And cake is: A: a breadlike food made from a dough or batter that is usually fried or baked in small flat shapes and is often unleavened B: a sweet baked food made from a dough or thick batter usually containing flour and sugar and often shortening, eggs, and a raising agent (such as baking powder)
And yet some people don’t think that cake is bread.
What’s your opinion?
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Cake does not encapsulate and is therefore toast.
Many cakes have some sort of filling between flat layers and are therefore sandwiches.
Charlotte royale is a calzone, tho.
vaguely threatening gesture You’re toast, cake.
Wrong. Cake is a frosting sandwich.
A hotdog is a a taco, most certainly, but don’t calzones have stuff contained within?
Only if it has filling in the center specifically. Many cakes would actually be sandwiches by this definition, and those without filling would be toast.
Also, I take issue with all open-ended wraps being lumped in as sushi.
As a former bakery owner: No, not at all. Cakes are made with loose batters, ideally with very little gluten. Breads are made with doughs, ideally with a bunch of gluten. Of course there are some formulas that might blur the lines a bit, but in general if you’re quite literally pouring the batter into a mold or pan of some sort rather than placing it inside, it’s a cake. Or a muffin. Or a cupcake.
Should also be noted that cakes are usually leavened chemically rather than with yeast. You don’t usually allow a cake batter to rise like you do with a bread dough.
Are pumpkin/banana/zucchini breads still bread in this definition?
From my experience, no. They’re made from batters and poured into a loaf pan, causing the iconic shape. If you frosted them they’d be a cake like any other.
whole category of cakes are called “quick bread” (ex. banana bread) because they’re baked in a loaf pan (they get the name from the shape rather than the ingredients)
i’d argue banana bread is cake, and is not bread, even though it has “bread” in its name
if you were offered a slice of banana bread but they were out so you got a slice of sandwich loaf instead, i suspect you’d be more annoyed than if you got a slice of chocolate cake
Yes, cake is bread. This is controversial because of the savoury vs. sweet distinction we have, but there’s no consistent way to include all the breads of the world without including Western cakes too.
I think saying cake is bread is like saying scrambled eggs is an omelette.
Isn’t it more like saying an omelette is scrambled eggs? And yes, actually, the only difference between a scramble and omelette is shape.
The ingredients used in both are also different. Don’t have to be, but usually are.
Interesting. What would you expect in one but not the other? I can’t think of anything, but it might be regional.
Plain scrambled eggs would be the scramble equivalent of a baguette with just flour, water and salt. An omelette loaded with things might be more like the cake.
Exactly. And there are sweet brrads like brioche that are almost cakes. And plain cakes like banana “bread”. By point exactly is that scrambled eggs are more usually plain, and omelettes are more usually rich with other ingredients, but prepared differently, like how bread is kneaded but cake not.
I’d say cakes are all bread, but not all bread is cake. Likewise, I’d say omelettes are a type of egg dish, as are plain scrambled eggs, but not all egg dishes are one of those.
If you kept to Western cuisine you could argue bread as a distinct category both within “homogeneous baked goods” or something, but then ingera (for example) would probably end up being a cake, and that’s not quite right. It’s more important that bread include all solid grain-based staples the world over than that it exclude Western cake, IMO.
All words are made up, so if you would like to define cake as a bread then I see no problem with that personally.
I am unsure if others would agree with you, but they might given specific context.
Personally, I don’t care too much, all I know is that cake it delicious.
P.S. There are definitely cakes that are not at all bread like though, like ice cream cake or cheese cake etc.
Cake was bread historically
I think all other dough-based dishes derive from bread really, since I believe it’s the most basis dough recipe ye can make…
Nowadays, my definition of modern cake = bread + defined-sweetness + fluffiness and softness
My proof that cake was bread; look at pound cake, one of modern cake’s forerunners, and tell me no one thought and baked it, thinking “how about bread, but more deluxe?”
Cake is just uppity bread. Acting all fancy and getting dressed up for special occasions. You changed, bro.
Sort of, yeah. If you asked me to categorize foods as “bread-like” or not, I would definitely count cake. But I would probably not make a sandwich with cake.
cake is: A: a breadlike food
Why are you questioning the definition you’ve provided?
If you google the question, you’ll get lots of people saying that cake isn’t bread, despite being similar.
I think it’s that people like certain levels of specificness. Like, bread, pizza, and broccoli are all foods, but if you said “I had a food for lunch” that’d sound weird.
It’s not necessarily that cake isn’t a type of bread or that the two aren’t closely related. It’s that we have a super-common and more specific word for it (cake) so it sounds awkward when you use a different word that might be technically accurate, but is a weird choice in practice.
Same for a lot of things. A hot dog and a sub are technically the same thing. But if a waiter dropped off your hot dog and said “here’s your pork sub”, you’d probably look at them funny.
You asked the question, “is a cake a sort of bread” and the dictionary is explicitly stating “cake is a breadlike food”.
Are you instead asking if “lots of people” is a more reliable source than the dictionary?
No but like something being bread like doesn’t mean that it is bread, just similar to bread.
Although clear examples of the difference between cake and bread are easy to find, the precise classification has always been elusive. For example, banana bread may be properly considered either a quick bread or a cake. Yeast cakes are the oldest and are very similar to yeast bread. Such cakes are often very traditional in form and include such pastries as babka and stollen.
I’ve never make a cake from dough. I’ve always make cake from batter.
You don’t need cake. You do knead bread.
Yes. Flour, water, heat. That’s it. Tortillas are bread. Cake is bread. Crackers are bread.
Whenever it comes down to definitions I like to go to expert definitions rather than common language. For food (are tomatoes a fruit?) I use FDA definitions, for which the definition of bread excludes what you’d mean by “cake”.
- Layman readable synopsis (bakerpedia)
- Sec. 136.110 Bread, rolls, and buns. (fda)
- Sec. 136.115 Enriched bread, rolls, and buns. (fda)
I don’t think the FDA defines cake, but it does specify how different types of cakes, brownies and such should be labeled (search for “cake” here).
