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?
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.
bread typically having a deliberately developed structural matrix with high elasticity,
Cake fits into this, I’d say.
Cake is just uppity bread. Acting all fancy and getting dressed up for special occasions. You changed, bro.
Bread usually has yeast, a cake never does.
Lots of cakes in Germany for example are traditionally made from yeasted doughs
I always used yeast when doing a cake, so the dough rise.
What about pancakes?
They aren’t a cake, and they don’t have yeast either
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
Egg bread exists.
What’s your argument about eggs now?
what the actual hell is egg bread
I still believe myself to be in the right and the majority of people I’ve spoken to have agreed with my opinions.
It’s just not bread. It’s just not.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/6879/a-number-one-egg-bread/
There’s also cake that uses yeast/leavening:
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/215136/drozdzowka-polish-yeast-plum-cake/
So I’m pretty sure the ingredient angle is out, unless you want to go by proportion of sugar/flour/whatever, which is a much more involved discussion, but IMO, will also be a fruitless one…
I don’t think ingredients are the dividing line here between cakes/breads, IMO, it might be texture/consistency of the loaf, but even that’s a hard sell. There are some very dense breads and some very airy cakes.
I’m more leaning towards “cake” being a label we put on bread products when we deem it appropriate.
The fact that a lot of this was defined by medieval standards, where people did some pretty strange things, especially with naming, IMO, is the root of the problem. Today, as we create new things we have specific terms for them that defines that thing and limits on what the thing is and isn’t. A lot of scientific naming has been refined in the last century because of the bad/inaccurate naming of things, mainly because they were named and defined well before we had the technology to properly understand what we were looking at.
Culinary arts, which can be scientific, but the naming certainly isn’t, is not an exact science. If you take either of the above recipes and add an extra quarter cup of flour or something to either, it probably won’t ruin the product. It might make it taste different than intended, but probably not ruined.
In all the difference between cake and bread is blurry at best. At worst, cake is just a specific type of bread product, which is defined fairly loosely by how we feel about it.
As a related fact, muffins and cupcakes have been in a war for which one is better for you. Cupcakes can have fewer calories, but muffins seem to have better marketing, so people feel like they’re better/more healthy, than eating cupcakes.
I dunno, I’m just some guy.
Tbh dictionaries being outdated was a thing that I was thinking about
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.
I once had a similar thought and reached the conclusion that based on dictionary definitions, everything can be categorized as either a soup or a salad.
Cake and bread are actually the same since they are both soups.
What is pizza?
Salad obviously
But the pizza base is bread, and bread is a soup.
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?”
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.
Do bagels count as cake based on calorie count or bread based on texture/flavor or doughnuts based on shape?
