Basic Cakes Types

Butter Cake & Foam Cake

Butter Cake – Melts in your mouth, butter cakes are the most popular type of cake which consists of two layers of two layers of a buttery cake filed with sweet frosting. It contains some form of fat (usually butter, margarine, oil or shortening). Early cakes were leavened only by the air beaten into the butter and eggs during the mixing process. Most cakes today include some sort of leaveners such as baking powder or baking soda, along with proper mixing techniques, to produce a lighter textured cake.

Pound Cake, along with white and yellow cake, fruit cake, and coffee cake are all variations of butter cakes. Butter cake recipes are easily doubled if you have extra baking pans, and any butter cake recipe can be baked as cupcakes. 

In many recipes the basic step in making butter cakes is mixing the sugar and fat together in a process called creaming. Creaming incorporates tiny air bubbles into the butter and sugar which expand during baking to help the cake rise. Next eggs and flavourings are beaten in. Eggs provide moisture, flavour, and color along with helping to aerate the batter. Finally the dry ingredients and liquids are added to finish the batter.

 European cakes are normally referred to as tortes, and often have more layers and complex elements, such as a combination of a sponge cake, meringue, filling, and jam.

                            

Foam Cake - Foam cakes and sponge cakes are delicate cakes made with little or no fat such as butter, oil, or shortening, making them lighter and airier than butter cakes. Most foam cakes recipes have no chemical leaveners such as baking powder or baking soda; instead they depend on a large amount of either whole or separated eggs that are whipped and filled with air bubbles to providing the leavening ingredient to make the cake rise during baking. Because foam cakes have a high proportion of eggs to flour they have a light and spongy texture not found in butter cakes. 

The basic types of foam cakes are Angel food, chiffon, Genoise, and sponge cakes that have eggs separated. Foam cakes such as Angel Food and Chiffon are moist enough to be served without soaking syrup added. Classic Genoise and Biscuit Sponge cakes start off drier but with a sturdy structure, making them able to drink and hold lots of moisture. The extra moisture is added by sprinkling soaking syrup onto each layer after they have cooled. Soaking syrup is simply sugar and water boiled together, and then a liquor, juice, or extract is added in a flavour that complements the cake.