34 Types of Cake Explained Simply and Sweetly

34 Types of Cake Explained Simply and Sweetly

People all over the world love cake as a dessert.  Every year, people in the United States spend billions of dollars on different kinds of cake. The Egyptians were the first people to realize that the key to making their dough rise was to use the natural yeast that was already in the air.  The first cakes were made from yeasted bread that was risen on hot stones.  It wasn't until the 19th century that leavening agents like baking soda and baking powder were invented. At the same time, sugar became more affordable and home ovens became more common.

Cakes are shaped by the cultures and ingredients that are close to them, just like other regional foods and dishes.  It's interesting to see what makes each of these cakes different.

Cake with red velvet

People in the United States still love red velvet cake more than any other cake.  The name of the cake comes from the way it feels: soft and velvety.  The unusual shade of color, which isn't often seen in other kinds of cake, came from raw cocoa powder.  In the 1800s, raw cocoa powder started to become popular. It has a lot of anthocyanin, a bright pigment that turns foods blue, purple, or red when they come in contact with acid.  Buttermilk, which has enough acid to react with the anthocyanin and give the cake a clear burgundy color, was used to make the first red velvet cakes.  When eggs and milk were scarce during World War I, many bakers had to use grated beets or baked juice instead.  This made the red color of the cake even brighter.

After getting approval from the Food and Drug Administration in the 1930s, color additives were used by many. The Adams Extract company used the approval to market its red food coloring.  A recipe for the "Adams Red Velvet Cake" was soon released by the company.

Cake with pineapple on top

An old-school favorite, the pineapple upside-down cake.  For hundreds of years, people have used cast-iron skillets to cook over open flames.  In the past, people would put sliced fruit in the bottom of the pan, pour in the batter, and then flip the cake over when it was done.  Early cast-iron pans had little "spider legs," so cakes with fruit on the bottom were called "spider cakes."

With the start of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole), pineapple became more popular in the United States.  For holidays and family get-togethers, this tart cake is a great addition.

Cake from Black Forest

The name "Black Forest cake" comes from a sour cherry brandy made in Germany's Black Forest called Schwarzwalder kirschwasser (kirsch).  In the past, the Black Forest cake was soaked in a sour cherry brandy.  This is true: the Black Forest gateau, as it is called in the UK, was given "protected status" by the EU in 2016.  In other words, Black Forest cake can only be called that if the kirsch comes from Germany's Black Forest.

Most of the time, whipped cream is spread on top of a chocolate sponge cake that has been soaked in sugar syrup flavored with cherry brandy.  In Germany, Black Forest cake is made with buttercream. In Austria, it is made with whipped cream, gelatin, and cornstarch.

Cupcakes

Americans are the only ones who make cupcakes.  A cookbook from 1796 may have been the first to talk about the dessert, calling it "a cake baked in small cups." Another possibility is that cupcakes were first talked about as a way to remember how much cake to make, similar to the pound cake.  In the 18th century, queen cakes were also popular. These cakes were cut into small pieces that were easy to share without using utensils.

It was the James River Corporation in the 1950s that made commercial paper cupcake liners popular.  Sprinkles Cupcake was the first dessert shop to sell cupcakes. It opened in 2005 and now sells more than 45,000 cupcakes every day.  Cupcakes come in almost all the same flavors as regular cakes, so you can make your own batch that tastes the way you want it to.

Cake for coffee

It's likely that coffee cake comes from the Danish habit of eating sweet breads with their morning coffee.  In the 1600s, coffee was brought to Europe. Soon after, people in Scandinavia and Germany started drinking it with sweet breads filled with nuts, fruits, and spices.  In the late 1800s, Dutch and German immigrants brought the "coffee cake" to the United States.  In the 1870s, bakers in New York, New Jersey, and Delaware began making coffee cakes that were more like pastries than bread.  Then, in the 1950s, coffee cakes were made in bundt pans so that the heavier batter and streusel topping would hold up better.

Today, coffee cake can be made with many different kinds of frosting, fruits, nuts, and toppings.  There is bittersweet chocolate, espresso powder, pomegranate molasses, and cocoa powder in Turkish coffee cake, and there is bittersweet chocolate ganache on top of the cake.

Angel food cake

An angel food cake is a fluffy, light cake made with way too many eggs.  It's called a "foam cake" because the structure comes from egg whites that have been beaten very hard instead of oil, yolks, or butter.  Angel food cake can be used in many ways.  Vanilla is the most common flavor, but citrus or almond extracts can be used instead. For a chocolate angel food cake, unsweetened cocoa powder can also be added.  You can add a spicy note to angel food cake with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Sift the ingredients and use caster sugar instead of granulated sugar for a light texture.  A stand mixer is also useful for making angel food cake because it consistently mixes the egg whites and sugar.  But you should put away the stand mixer when it's time to fold the egg whites into the batter. Using a stand mixer may make the angel food cake dense by beating out the air in it.

Cake with devil's food

Different things make chocolate cake and devil's food cake different.  Devil's food cake is dense, and the structure comes from vegetable oil.  For devil's food cake to rise, leavening agents like baking soda and baking powder are used instead of angel food cake.  In some devil's food cake recipes, coffee is used to make the chocolate taste better.

Like other cakes, devil's food cake can be changed to suit your tastes and the ingredients you have on hand. Some proof shows that shredded beets were added to the first devil's food cake recipes to make them more moist and sweet. This means that the devil's food cake was a precursor to the popular red velvet cake. The dark chocolate tastes great with grated orange rind, and it doesn't make the batter too wet.

A pound cake

The history of the pound cake is pretty easy to understand.  Brits in the 18th century who couldn't read or write relied on memorized recipes to make sure their baked goods were always the same.  Butter, sugar, eggs, and flour are the only things you need to make a classic pound cake.  For the first pound cake recipe, the bakers used one pound of each.  In the end, pound cake made its way to the southern United States, where it became a common baked good in many homes.

Newer versions of the pound cake recipe have different tastes and textures.  In Chef Stephanie Prida's recipe for olive oil pound cake with glazed apples, chopped walnuts, brandy, and cider-glazed apples are mixed with oil instead of butter.  The Greek yogurt in rhubarb pound cake keeps it soft, and the ground cardamon, sliced rhubarb, and orange zest give it its flavor.  It's springtime, and this pound cake with black tea cream on top tastes great. You'll want it on your kitchen table.

Cake with sponge

A lot of different types of cakes got their start with sponge cake.  One big difference between sponge cakes and angel food cakes is that angel food cakes only use egg whites, while sponge cakes use both egg whites and egg yolks.

Three simple things are all you need to make Italian sponge cake: eggs that are at room temperature, granulated sugar, and low-protein flour.  You can change the recipe to include extracts. For example, lemon is the most common flavor used in Italian baking.  Like when making angel food cake, the baker needs to be careful not to knock the air out of the batter before baking it.

Genoise sponge cake

A brush of flavored syrup and butter and egg yolk are added to Genoise sponge cake to make it taste better.  The key to making a tasty but light sponge that can be layered in a torte is to add just the right amount of syrup without soaking the cake.

A popular cake on "The Great British Bake Off" is the genoise sponge cake. On Season 6, Episode 8, Mary Berry, who calls herself the "queen of cakes," had bakers make mockatines for the technical round.  There is coffee icing and a crème beurre au moka, which is a French coffee icing, on these small genoise sponge cakes.  A few seasons later, Prue Leith's Le Gâteau Vert came out. This cake has a pistachio-flavored genoise sponge inside and a pistachio marzipan and a spinach-based, boozy crème au beurre on top.

Cake with carrots

According to Alan Davidson's "Oxford Companion to Food," people have been baking with carrots since the Middle Ages, when regular sugars were hard to come by.  Up until World War II, carrots were still used in Christmas pudding and cake recipes.

You can add different fruits, nuts, and flavors to carrot cake.  Whole wheat flour can be used instead of the base flour to make the flavor nuttier and more fibrous. You can make your carrot cake taste more tropical by adding fruits like pineapple. This will also cut down on the need for extra sugar.

Opera cake

The three layers of opera cake are chocolate ganache, espresso buttercream, and almond sponge. It is a traditional French dessert.  The French pastry chef Cyriaque Gavillion's wife gave this type of cake its name because she thought it looked like the Paris Opera House.

The sophisticated layers of this cake are a big part of how each bite tastes different.  At home, almond flour and white pastry flour are mixed together to make the flour.  The cake's nutty undertone comes from this mix.  A layer of boozy espresso-brandy syrup is also soaked into the cake to add flavor. Finally, the espresso buttercream and delicate chocolate ganache are spread over the whole cake.

Tiffany cake

Chiffon cake is different from sponge cake because it gets its texture and rise from vegetable oil and baking soda.  Because of these ingredients, chiffon cake bakes up a bit heavier than sponge cake.  People say that Harry Baker, who started the company General Mills, changed the chiffon cake recipe so that it uses vegetable oil instead of industrial shortening.  General Mills' Betty Crocker company helped spread the word about this new way of baking.

Most of the time, citrus flavors go with chiffon cake.  Four of the most popular flavors of chiffon cake are orange, almond, chocolate, and coconut. A light, fluffy batter brings out the citrus notes.

Chocolate cake without flour

A favorite gluten-free treat is chocolate torte cake that can be made and baked in less than an hour.  It calls for dark chocolate, almond meal, eggs, and butter. When mixed together, they make a dense, chocolatey slice that goes well with mascarpone, cream, or fresh fruit slices.

Instead of flour, Chef Nigella Lawson makes a cake that tastes like chocolate cake but is more grown-up by adding rosewater, chopped pistachios, and softened pears.  It's the pears that add a lot of moisture to the cake without changing its flavor too much.  For a fancy party or after dinner treat, this recipe can be made quickly in a food processor and baked in less than an hour.

Hi Johnnycakes

A simple mix of cornmeal, water, and salt is used in this recipe that dates back hundreds of years. It is then fried on a hot orchard.  Not everyone agrees on where johnnycakes came from, but it's likely that they have Native American roots.  People in New England eat this dish all the time, and people in the South also like it; they call it "hoe cakes."

There are versions of johnnycakes that are both sweet and savory. Charred corn johnnycakes with peach compote from Chef Gabe Kennedy taste like summer in New England, and the mint mascarpone on top adds a nice touch.  They can also be served with fresh fruit or syrup and butter, like pancakes.

Cake blackout in Brooklyn

The Ebinger Baking Company came up with the idea for the Brooklyn blackout cake. The inside of this chocolate cake is filled with chocolate pudding, and the frosting is made of pudding and chocolate pieces.  It got its name from blackout drills that took place in Brooklyn during World War II. During these drills, emergency plans were put in place that "blacked out" the city.

The bakery closed in 1972, but people who bake at home can still enjoy the chocolate wonder that is the blackout cake.  Instant coffee is used in some recipes to make the chocolate flavors in the cake stronger.  If you use baking soda and buttermilk together, the cake will rise and stay moist.

Cake with apples

There are many links between the apple cake and German culture.  "Apple cake" is what the cake is called in German, and warming spices like cinnamon and nutmeg are used to make it.  Others, though, say that apple cake comes from Polish and Jewish culture because it didn't originally have any dairy or meat in it, which is against Kosher rules.  Instead of butter, the Jewish apple cake has oil, which keeps it from going bad and makes it equal.

A baker can make apple cake as easy or hard as they want.  Apples, nutmeg, and cinnamon are all classic fall flavors that can be used in a soft sponge cake to make spiced apple cake.  A nine-inch cake pan is used to pour the batter into. The batter is made from traditional sponge cake ingredients and sour cream. Softened Granny Smith apples are then placed on top of the batter.  For a nutty touch, you could also add a layer of walnuts or pecans.

Fruit cream cake from Asia

In both Japan and Korea, fruit cream cake is a traditional treat for birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas.  American bake shops usually make cakes that are very sweet and dense. This fruit cream cake isn't like those.

If you eat sponge cake with a main course, it's often paired with a sweet cream, jam, or fresh fruit. This makes the cake light.  For a soft dessert, some recipes may call for a soft sponge layer, custard filling, and whipped topping that is kept stable with gelatin.  For a summery, fresh look, sliced strawberries, blueberries, and grapes are often used to decorate the cake in a very artistic way.

Cake poke

Poke cake looks like a dessert from the 1970s or a college dorm room.  When you bake a cake, poke small holes in the top of it and add a layer of flavored gelatin or pudding. This makes a poke cake.  A vanilla boxed cake mix and strawberry or raspberry Jello may be used in a poke cake recipe for a sweet treat from the past.  To make this cake, just follow the directions on the box for baking and mixing the mix. Then, poke holes in the cake about ½ inch deep and pour the ready-made Jello mixture over it.  The cake can be served after it has set by putting a tub of whipped cream on top of it.

Some recipes may say to use boxed devil's food cake mix and chocolate pudding instead of Jello to make a chocolate poke cake.  After making the cake, all you have to do is put chocolate shavings, chopped candy bars, or fresh fruit on top!

Cream cheese

In the fifth century, the Greeks came up with the idea for cheesecake.  What goes into the cheese? Soft cheese, eggs, sugar, and flavoring. What goes into the cake? A cookie or pastry base.  The cake can be raw, like in French cheesecake, or baked, like in New York cheesecake.  Cream cheese is the soft cheese most often used in cheesecake, but ricotta, quark, and cottage cheese can also be used.

Different kinds of cheesecake have different tastes.  A chocolate cheesecake that doesn't need to be baked has sour cream, cream cheese, melted semisweet chips, and a graham cracker crust that has already been made.  With a sprinkle of flaky sea salt on top, these ingredients keep the custard moist and tasty.  You can also put fresh fruits on top of cheesecake, like strawberries, blueberries, or cherries.

Sweet strawberry cake

Strawberry shortcake has a long history that goes back to early America. It has changed a lot over the years.  In the past, native people mixed strawberries and corn to make strawberry cake. It is thought that the colonizers made a shortcake version of this dessert.

Soon after, in 1847, the first shortcake recipe came out.  A recipe for "Strawberry Cake" with mashed strawberries and frosting can be found in "Miss Leslie's Ladies Receipt Book" from the 1850s.  Over time, whipped cream took the place of butter icing, and the cake part of the recipe changed to suit different regions. For example, Southern shortcake has a more biscuit-like texture, while Northern shortcake is more cake-like and soft. With cognac-soaked strawberries, mascarpone, and toasted almonds, this strawberry shortcake recipe is a more grown-up take on the classic dessert.

Basque cheesecake

Basque cheesecake is a lot like American cheesecake, but there is one important difference: the crust!  The Basque cheesecake doesn't have a crust, so it needs an oven that is naturally hot to make a crust.

La Viña cheesecake from San Sebastián, Spain, is made with heavy cream, sugar, cream cheese, egg, flour, and vanilla. This is one of the oldest cheesecake recipes from the Basque country.  But you can get creative and add some tasty twists to the original, like strawberry or chocolate versions of the recipe. You can put fruit or cream on top of these cheesecakes and serve them at almost any event or get-together.

Bagousa

Basbousa is a semolina cake from the Middle East that is topped with coconut flake and soaked in syrup. It is also popular in North Africa and Western Asia.  The soaking syrup can taste like lemon, rose water, or orange blossom water, among other things.  People usually eat the cake during Ramadan, which is a holy time for Muslims to fast.  People have said that the taste of basbousa is soft, crumbly, and like American cornbread.

Basbousa can have a lot of different tastes and regional ingredients.  In Egypt, almond powder and a hazelnut topping are often added to basbousa.  Basbousa is often made in Syria and Lebanon with coconut or candied orange peel added to it and pistachios that have been crushed.

Bundt cake

The shape of a bundt cake is more important than what's inside it.  Chef Alton Brown says that the key to making the perfect bundt shape is to make sure that the batter doesn't stick to the sides of the doughnut-shaped mold.  He says that you should put butter and flour on the bundt pan, then put plastic wrap over it and shake it really hard.  This will keep your bundt from sticking by making sure all the corners of the pan are covered.

People like bundt cakes all year, but most people make and decorate them in a big way around the holidays.  Glaze, icing, and decorations are what give bundt cakes their complicated look.  Jessica Morrone, who created the recipe, says that her moist chocolate zucchini cake tastes best when baked in a bundt pan, which also makes it easy to decorate with lots of small details.

A thousand crepes cake

In French, mille crepe means "one thousand crepes."  That might be a bit of an exaggeration, though. A typical mille crepe cake has 15 to 30 layers of crepes between layers of sweet, thin filling.  Some of the mille foil cakes also have a layer of frosting on the outside that is piped in very fancy ways.

There are many flavors of these complicated cakes, like the tiramasu birthday cake, which is made with mascarpone and sweet marsala wine.  To make a tropical take on the mille crepe cake, you could even mix mango puree and cream with several layers of crepes.

Cake with ice cream

Ice cream cake is a treat from childhood that combines two of the best desserts ever: ice cream and cake. Most ice cream cakes are put together by putting chocolate, fruit, or candy between layers of ice cream and cake.  There are many themes and flavors of ice cream cakes that can help you be creative and use your imagination.

A traditional Spumoni ice cream cake has pistachio, cherry, and chocolate ice cream from Italy, along with a chocolate waffle cone crust that gives it some crunch.  A classic frozen campfire treat, S'mores ice cream cake has layers of homemade marshmallows, chocolate graham crackers, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate ice cream.

Cake in a box

Icebox cakes don't have ice cream or cake inside like ice cream cakes do.  Instead, icebox cakes are no-bake desserts made with wafer cookies and whipped topping stacked on top of each other and then chilled. Because of the way it looks, it's also sometimes called "dirt." Home bakers like icebox cakes because they can be made in any way they want by adding fruit, cookies, and toppings.

If you want to make a "cake" with your kids, icebox cakes are great because they don't need much cooking equipment.  Heavy cream, caramel sauce, salt, and chocolate wafer cookies are all you need to make a simple salted caramel icebox cake.  When you take the cake out of the fridge after at least three hours, it's firm enough to serve.

Cake with honey

On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, honey cake is often served.  Medovik is the Russian name for this recipe, which comes from Emperor Alexander I.

For honey cake, you use, you guessed it, honey to add sweetness.  The Greek yogurt, eggs, and unsalted butter in this easy honey cake recipe add moisture.  You can use either a cast-iron skillet or a nine-inch cake pan to make the recipe.  With honey cake, the skillet is helpful because it makes the crusty top bigger while keeping the cake moist on the inside.  Finally, fresh fruit and chopped pistachios are added to the top of the cake.

Cake for hummingbirds

The first time the hummingbird cake recipe was sent to Southern Living was in 1978.  It's now one of their most-loved recipes!  Vegetable oil and pineapple chunks from a can are used to add moisture to the hummingbird cake. The liquid from the can is mixed into the batter.  The pineapple gives the cake a tropical feel. The cake also has bananas, chopped pecans (roasted to make them taste better), and cream cheese frosting on top.

You can also use a loaf pan to make hummingbird cake, like in this hummingbird loaf cake recipe.  The cake tastes just like a frosted hummingbird cake, but it has a pecan oat streusel and vanilla glaze on top.

King cake

King cake is an important part of Mardi Gras.  This cake, which can be shaped like a loaf or a braided ring, is just as fancy as the Mardi Gras party.  Purple, green, and gold sugar are used to decorate the cake. These colors were chosen by the Rex parade in 1892 to represent power, faith, and justice.  The last important part of the king cake is the small toy that is usually a plastic baby that is hidden inside.  People say that the person who picks the piece with the trinket is king for that day and has to buy or make the cake for the next year's Mardi Gras party.

With colored sprinkles, white vanilla icing, and sweet dough, you can make king cake at home. However, it is much better to order a cake online from one of New Orleans' king cake bakeries for the event.  All of these bakeries make king cakes in their own unique ways, but they all try to capture the spirit of the traditional cake.

Apple cake

The name of the treat, "fruitcake," tells you everything you need to know about it.  The first kind of it appeared in Europe and was called plumb cake. It was made of a very dense sponge filled with candied and dried fruit.  Over time, many new fruits like currants, raisins, and apricots started to show up in recipes. They were often mixed with alcohol (often in the form of fruit or sponge that has been soaked in brandy or wine), warming spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and fragrant infusions like rosewater.

Today, people usually make two kinds of fruitcake: light fruitcake and dark fruitcake. The first one, as its name suggests, has lighter-colored fruits and ingredients. The second one, on the other hand, has heavy molasses and brown sugar, as well as nuts, dried cherries, and prunes.  Citron, a candied fruit peel, is the main reason why some people don't like fruitcake's unique flavor. However, this ingredient can be left out of the recipe if desired.  Because it's heavy and dense, this kind of cake is popular around the holidays.

Cake with marbles

It's all about how the marble cake looks.  It's made by slowly mixing two different colors of batter together, usually vanilla and chocolate or vanilla and coffee, so that the batter looks like a lava lamp.  Since you can marble cupcakes, coffee cakes, sponge cakes, and even quick breads, it's more of a method than a type of cake.

With a spoon or, if the cake is small enough, just a toothpick, you can marble it.  Drop chunks of one batter into the other and mix them together.  If you want extra points, make the marble cake look fancy with a chocolate and vanilla swirl frosting. You can also bake it in any shape pan you like.

Sticky butter cake

This kind of cake is probably familiar to people who live in or have been to St. Louis, the Gateway to the West.  Gooey butter cake is a regional treat with an unknown history.  Some people say it was done on purpose, while others say it happened because of a bad coffee cake. Even though its history isn't clear, this is without a doubt one of the tastiest vanilla "cakes" you'll ever taste.  Why is it called "gooey"? Because it has a yeasted crust and a custardy soft filling that hasn't set yet.  Some bakers no longer use yeasted crusts at all. Instead, they choose a shell that looks more like a blondie and an inside that is custardy and full of cream cheese.  Most of the time, butter cake is served in squares instead of triangle-shaped pieces.

There are a lot of different versions of this recipe that use different flavors. For example, some are made with brown butter, which makes the vanilla flavor even stronger.  If you like chocolate, you can join in too. Our recipe for chocolate gooey butter cake is like a molten brownie and a chocolate cake made together.

Castella cake from Japan

"Bouncy" is probably not the word you want to use for your cake, unless it's Japanese castella cake. In Japan, this sweet is often eaten as a snack in the middle of the afternoon.  Different from many other Asian desserts, this one isn't too sweet. It might also be called kasutera.  The cake was first made in 1543, around the same time that merchants and missionaries from Portugal started coming to the Nagasaki area.  Its name comes from pão de Castela, which means "bread of Castille." This pillowy, soft cake with honey flavor was made possible by the arrival of sugar on the island nation and the presence of Portuguese food in the area.

Chemical leaveners like baking soda and baking powder are not used in Japanese castella cake. Instead, whipped egg whites give the cake its signature lift and puffy texture.  Mizuame is a starchy sugar that is often used in recipes. It helps the cake stay moist.  Most people enjoy this cake without any other toppings or frosting, just a sprinkle of powdered sugar.