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.
The term "cake" has a long history. The word itself is of Viking origin, from the Old Norse word "kaka".
The ancient Greeks called cake πλακοῦς (plakous), which was derived from the word for "flat", πλακόεις (plakoeis). It was baked using flour mixed with eggs, milk, nuts, and honey. They also had a cake called "satura", which was a flat heavy cake. During the Roman period, the name for cake became "placenta" which was derived from the Greek term. A placenta was baked on a pastry base or inside a pastry case.
The Greeks invented beer as a leavener, frying fritters in olive oil, and cheesecakes using goat's milk. In ancient Rome, the basic bread dough was sometimes enriched with butter, eggs, and honey, which produced a sweet and cake-like baked good. Latin poet Ovid refers to his and his brother's birthday party and cake in his first book of exile, Tristia.
Early cakes in England were also essentially bread: the most obvious differences between a "cake" and "bread" were the round, flat shape of the cakes, and the cooking method, which turned cakes over once while cooking, while bread was left upright throughout the baking process.
Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain.
During the Great Depression, there was a surplus of molasses and the need to provide easily made food to millions of economically depressed people in the United States. One company patented a cake-bread mix to deal with this economic situation, and thereby established the first line of cake in a box. In so doing, cake, as it is known today, became a mass-produced good rather than a home- or bakery-made specialty.
Later, during the post-war boom, other American companies (notably General Mills) developed this idea further, marketing cake mix on the principle of convenience, especially to housewives. When sales dropped heavily in the 1950s, marketers discovered that baking cakes, once a task at which housewives could exercise skill and creativity, had become dispiriting. This was a period in American ideological history when women, retired from the war-time labor force, were confined to the domestic sphere, while still exposed to the blossoming consumerism in the US. This inspired psychologist Ernest Dichter to find a solution to the cake mix problem in the frosting. Since making the cake was so simple, housewives and other in-home cake makers could expend their creative energy on cake decorating inspired by, among other things, photographs in magazines of elaborately decorated cakes.
Ever since cake in a box has become a staple of supermarkets and is complemented with frosting in a can.
If you want to read a lot more about cake, go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cake
Our 5-Ingredient Pizza Bake delivers lots of pizzeria flavor, without having to send for take-out! With an easy-to-make crust, this one is literally foolproof!
- 2 1/2 cups pancake and biscuit mix
- 1 cup water
- 1 (14-ounce) jar pizza sauce
- 1 (6-ounce) package sliced pepperoni
- 1 (7-ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
- 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese
- Preheat oven to 375º. Coat a 9- x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, stir biscuit mix and water until soft dough forms. Drop half of dough by spoonfuls evenly into bottom of baking dish. (Dough will not completely cover bottom of dish.)
- Spoon 1 cup pizza sauce over dough. Arrange 1/2 the pepperoni slices and 1/2 the mushrooms evenly over sauce. Top with 1 cup cheese. Repeat layers with remaining dough, pizza sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms, and cheese.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cut into squares and serve.
- Freezer instructions: Follow steps 1-4 above (do not cut into squares). Allow pizza bake to cool. Then cover with several layers of foil and freeze. When ready to eat, place recipe in fridge to thaw 24 hours in advance. Reheat, serve, and enjoy!
1951 – Jay North, American actor
The 13th colony and the 4th state to enter the Union, National Georgia Day recognizes the natural wonders and immense complexities of this bastion of Southern culture.
Georgia’s founder, James Oglethorpe, settled the colony’s first capital, Savannah. Georgia would go on to have four more capitals, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville and finally, Atlanta
Politically and socially, a divide has always seemed to exist. Considering Georgia was initially established as a barrier of fortification between South Carolina’s southern border and the Spanish settled in Florida, perhaps Georgia lived up to destiny.
To Sign or Not to Sign
Georgia initially prohibited slavery in 1735. Of the 13 original colonies, she was the only one to do so. The prohibition lasted 15 years. Leading up the Revolution, Georgia leaned toward supporting the crown and was the single colony not in attendance at the First Continental Congress.
During the Second Continental Congress, Georgia first sent one delegate, Lyman Hall. However, Hall didn’t vote because he only represented a single parish in Georgia. The colony later sent Button Gwinnett and George Walton as official delegates. All three signed the Declaration of Independence.
Wars were destructive for Georgia. Her people and the economy suffered, and the resistance to social change persisted.
During the 20th century, industrial and technological advancements found a niche in Georgia’s economy. A hub for airlines, military bases and international corporations, Georgia rebounded once more.
National Georgia Day Flavor
When it comes to Georgia, words that come to mind include home-cookin’ and comfort food. Don’t be surprised by the serving size, the number of fried foods or desserts. Two things are certain, they’re made from the heart, and they are delicious!
Just about anything can be fried, including okra, green tomatoes, chicken, seafood and Vidalia onions. Since 1986, those sweet onions grow in Vidalia and 20 Georgia counties, and nowhere else by Geogia law.
Peaches are to Georgia like sunshine is summer. Take a bite out a ripe one and let the juice run down your chin. Or, enjoy all the wonderful peach pastries or canned peaches Georgia has to offer. From pies to jellies, there are so many ways to bring the flavor of Georgia home with you.
Grab a Coca-Cola and some boiled peanuts to enjoy the summer weather. Georgia is home to Coca-Cola and enjoying salty peanuts go back to the Civil War era.
Real BBQ finds a home in the South and in Georgia, you better show up early or you won’t get served. When its done right, there’s bound to be a limited supply, so it sells out early, too!
When the air is cool, a Brunswick stew is in order. With tomatoes, lima beans, corn, okra, potatoes, and chicken, beef or any game to be had, this one-dish meal will warm the whole family up on cold, Southern evening.
HOW TO OBSERVE
Overall, Georgia’s history is fertile for inspiration. Alongside the peach orchards and cotton fields surge crops of masterful artists, musicians, writers, and poets. Their experiences with the beauty, history, and humanity of Georgia fill the eyes and ears with more than can be appreciated in one visit.
