Is cake a sort of bread?
Is cake a sort of bread?
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?
This would technically only be true for cakes with filling - a normal cake doesn't have 6 sides of carbs, it's all the way through.
Wrong. Cake is a frosting sandwich.
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.
There is even at least one variety of cake literally called a sandwich, the Victoria Sandwich.
A hotdog is a a taco, most certainly, but don't calzones have stuff contained within?
I suppose jet thinks that brad is a calzone with bread/dough filling
I guess going by this logic, bread is a calzone with bread filling. doesn't make a lot of sense to me tbh.
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)
they get the name from the shape rather than the ingredients
I was under the understanding that the main difference was that quick breads used chemical leavening agents (e.g. baking powder) instead of yeast. Hence the "quick" in "quick bread". Wikipedia (always a source of unblemished truth /s) seems to agree with my understanding.
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
And the texture of actual sweet breads is way different than the texture of banana bread. Breads are chewy, cakes are crumbly.
Cake is just uppity bread. Acting all fancy and getting dressed up for special occasions. You changed, bro.
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.
As a general rule, I would see in a majority of cases that in a bread, gluten development is encouraged to provide a chewy texture. In a cake, you want to avoid gluten development to have a light and fluffy texture.
Special bread flours have high gluten content and cake flours have lower gluten for that reason.
Now we of course do have many exceptions, such as banana bread is low gluten and very sweet, while many biscuit recipes call for cake flour, but no one would call a biscuit a cake. In both those cases, I don't think you would like a banana bread or biscuit that has the strong gluten structure that a proper baguette has.
Cakes (especially something like donuts) can be yeast risen, and some breads like matzo or tortillas have no leavening, or breads can use chemical leavening like Irish soda bread.
I wouldn't consider banana bread a bread. It's a cake and the bread part is just a name.
I personally agree with you on that. Anything much sweeter than raisin bread like muffins and cupcakes I count as cakes.
If gluten is required, then gf bread isn't bread. But anyone who's eaten gf bread would call it bread. Different but still bread.
I don't know if I've ever had GF bread, so I had to look up how it's made. I wondered how the bread would have the proper structure to rise without a gluten matrix, and it seems I was on to something. Reading up on it a bit, gums and starches are used to replace the function of the missing gluten. So while GF bread has no gluten, it's still made with a gluten replacement, and the same function is required for proper results.
If we change my qualifier to bread typically having a deliberately developed structural matrix with high elasticity, it covers wheat and GF breads. It still is fairly universal we want chewy breads and non-chewy cakes.
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.
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?"
I think the clue is in the definition you posted:
a breadlike food.
As a german I would say that bread and cake are very similar, but distinct things, even though the border is very blurry. Take brioche, I think that's more of a bread, but it's very soft, moist and sweet, so it leans heavily towards cake.
I'd say in general bread is more savory or neutral, made to be eaten with something, and cake is sweet and supposed to be a food on it's own.
that's what I don't get. OP posts how they specifically aren't the same and then goes on like he didn't just write that.
If it fits loosely under the food pyramid category and I can therefore eat a ton of it and say it's just my daily bread, then yes.
But sugars are at the top and we all know the higher a thing is the more important it is. Can we double-dip on the chart? Also yes.
food pyramid
You're really showing your age with this one. The food pyramid got replaced 13 years ago
Wow, the dairy industry must've paid a lot to get that spot replacing water. Milk is atrocious for diet and filled with bad fats, with little added nutritional value. At least cheeses are condensed protein and fat. Not considering that most of the world is intolerant to it.
You don't need cake. You do knead bread.
You don't need cake. You don't need bread either.
Bread usually has yeast, a cake never does.
Lots of cakes in Germany for example are traditionally made from yeasted doughs
What about pancakes?
They aren't a cake, and they don't have yeast either
I always used yeast when doing a cake, so the dough rise.
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.
My argument: Bread is leavened and whose basic mixture is flour or meal. (Usually baked, but so are most cakes so I'll leave this as moot.)
If a cake can meet those requirements, Yes, it would be a bread.
Otherwise, it would be a breadlike food. In the cake definition it uses a "breadlike food" probably due to to the latter half of the statement "often unleavened". This would lead me to presume that most cakes, while breadlike, do not meet the requirements. It'd be more reasonable to make a statement on the majority (breadlike) than minority (Bread).
Irish soda bread
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.
Oh would you not? Then what is the jelly or frosting fillings between the layer? Isn't that A JELLY SANDWICH??
(I am being aloof for the purpose of humor)
It's not every day that a comment makes me self-reflect and challenge my beliefs like this.
Thank you for opening my mind, Buglefingers. I've got a lot of thinking to do.
Do bagels count as cake based on calorie count or bread based on texture/flavor or doughnuts based on shape?
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).
Never heard of fried cake. In my native language that's sure a word not interchangeable with what I would translate cake to
Maybe yeast is the thing?
In which case, cake isn't bread.
And also bread isn't bread, it's just a really thick beer.
But it doesn't have alcohol, so you'd need to add sugar.
Then beer is cake.
No, but cheese is a kind of meat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fc_2BxVurM
I’ve never make a cake from dough. I’ve always make cake from batter.
Rye bread looks like chocolate cake. So... is bread a sort of cake?
US bread taste like bread, it's soft and sugary.
I would turn it the other way breads are a sort of cake but more minimalist (water, flour, yeast, and a pinch of salt) and then there is some pimped bread which moves toward the cake, like when you add milk or even eggs
Yes. Flour, water, heat. That's it. Tortillas are bread. Cake is bread. Crackers are bread.
These comments could be part of an episode of Qi.
it's a doctrinal difference
also you could possibly look at something like gluten formation, but i suspect there's a gluteny cake out there as well as a glutenless bread
cornbread
TRUE
Not bread. Cake doesn't use yeast (leavened basically means using yeast). Bread does.
Cake uses eggs, bread doesn't.
Cake is expensive to buy or make. Bread isn't as bad.
I think we clearly know it's not bread. Back me up here someone. I'm the person being referred to in the OP btw.
Cake doesn't use yeast (leavened basically means using yeast).
some cakes do use yeast, and something like baking powder is a leavening agent
Cake uses eggs, bread doesn't.
brioche
Cake is expensive to buy or make. Bread isn't as bad.
brioche
