Cake Ingredients
Cake baking and decoration used to be a very time consuming and labor intensive process, especially regarding the mixing processes that are so easy to perform with today's technology. Simple cakes can even be mass produced using machines requiring little or no labor, these cakes are often very cheap and low quality. Sweetart only produce the highest quality, bespoke and handmade cakes for customers. Nothing is ever mass produced.
Note: This information is for referance purpose only and some of the information may not relate to Sweetart.
Cakes nearly always utilise a type of flour, sweetening agents like sugar or syrup, an ingredient that holds it all together known as a binding agent like egg (but for vegetarians, gluten and starch can be used). Something containing fat like butter, shortening or margarine can also be used, but fruit purée like applesauce can be a substitute to fat. Some kind of liquid such as milk, water, fruit juices or certain soft drinks such as Dr Pepper are upcoming alternatives. Flavoring and a leavening agent like yeast or baking powder, but modern cakes and skilled cake decorators don't use these ingredients and instead rely on the air inside the cake mix to expand and make the cake rise. Most cakes are frosted with buttercream or marzipan, like the frills and borders around birthday cakes and wedding cakes. Cakes can be finalised with fresh or crystallized fruit, edible glitter and beads, chocolate shapes and sweets.
There are a vast number of cake types, but the four most common are listed below:
Cakes made from yeast are the oldest kind of cake. They are similar to baked breads that are made from yeast. Yeast based cakes are traditional and are often decorated so. These cakes can also be in the form of babka and stollen pastries.
Cheesecakes, as the name suggests, involve cheese as an ingredient. Often mascarpone, cream cheese or ricotta and have very little or no flour in the ingredients. Flour is sometimes used and can be seen as a sweetened crust lining the cake. This kind of cake is very old like yeast based cakes, such cakes that used honey as a sweetener can be traced back to the times of ancient Greece. Sweetart does not make cheesecakes.
The third type of cake are sponge cakes. These were the first non-yeast based cake to appear that use air inside the mix to give the leveling during baking, making the need for a leveling ingredient, unnecessary. Beating eggs with a whisk is often sufficient to cause leveling as to hold air within the protein matrix, a smattering of baking powder can be added for insurance though. Popular sponge cakes include Italian and Jewish "pan di Spagna" and " French Génoise".
Cakes that use alot of butter and eggs are called butter cakes, common examples of these cakes are the pound cake and devil's food cake. Baking powder can be added in to act as a leveling ingredient and a better texture.
The latest and most modern cake isn't really a cake at all, but more of an arrangement of small, chocolate cups. The basic chocolate cup is manufactured using a mold, where pure Belgian chocolate is poured into and allowed to set. The plane chocolate cup can then be decorated and filled. They can be filled with a variety of substances such as chocolate truffle, alcohol (e.g. Baileys) and fruit puree. Available flavors and fillings for chocolate cups are:
Vanilla sponge with white chocolate truffle.
Chocolate sponge with milk chocolate truffle.
Vanilla sponge layer with white chocolate and champagne truffle layer.
Chocolate sponge with Bailey’s,Tia Maria or cointreau truffle layer.
Lemon sponge with cointreau truffle.
