Cakes are bakery products that are rich in sugar fat and eggs and can be accompanied with a wide variety of inclusions like fruits and flavours such as vanilla extracts.
They represent a very important segment within the baking industry.
- They come in many varieties and very versatile in terms of flavours, textures, shapes, and colours, perfect as snack or as a serving size portion on special occasions.
- They are typically made from soft wheat characterized by low protein content and high purity.
Cakes can generally be categorized into three types based on differences in formulation, processing conditions, and attributes of the finished product:
1. Batter type: rely on eggs, flour, and milk for structure and contain high amounts of fat and water which creates an aerated and chemically-leavened oil-in-water emulsion. Much of the volume of the finished product is created by baking powder. Batter types are classified into:
- Pound cakes (which rely on eggs and fat for leavening, e.g., butter, pound, and snack cake)
- Layer cakes (that rely more on chemical leaveners, e.g., white layer, yellow layer, and chocolate layer cake)
2. Foam type: rely mainly on the extension and denaturation of egg protein for the bulk of the final volume. They can be regarded as "cakes without shortening" given the absence of the oil-in-water emulsion characteristic of batter systems. Depending on the egg fraction used, foam-type cakes are divided into two classes:
- Angel food cake (makes use of egg white proteins to trap air during mixing)
- Sponge cake (makes use of either whole eggs or yolks or a combination of both)
3. Chiffon type: made with a combination of batter and foam to form a modified "foam-type" grain and texture.
