Cakes and Recipes – Where Do They Come From?

To most of us today, a cake is “a sweet baked food made from a dough or thick batter usually containing flour and sugar and often shortening, eggs, and a raising agent (as baking powder)” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). This definition of cake, however, only dates back to around the middle of the 19th century.

Early Beginnings

The word ‘cake’ is derived from the Norse word, kaka and was first used in the English language around the 13th century, but the origin of cake is much older than that. Some historians trace cake back as far as the Stone Age. In fact, rudimentary ‘cakes’ made from crushed grains, moistened with water and probably cooked on a hot stone were discovered among the remains found in caves around Swiss lake villages . This kind of unleavened cake was really much more like bread and was the precursor of all modern European baked products. The closest thing to those early ‘cakes’ today are oatcakes, which are flat and unleavened – but continue to retain the word ‘cake’ in the name. For a long time, there was no real difference between cake and bread, although “it's probable that the term cake was used for the smaller breads. ” (Linda Stradley. “History of Cakes.” What’s Cooking America. 2004)

Soon after they had discovered flour, people all over the world began making ‘cake,’ but although they were made from flour, these were still not cakes in the modern sense of the word, principally because no raising agent was used. Early cakes were simply “flour-based sweet foods as opposed to … breads, which were just flour-based foods without sweetening .” Extra ingredients were simply added to a portion of bread dough.

Thus the ancient Greeks baked cakes, known as plakous, using nuts and honey, the Romans made cakes using raisins, nuts and other fruits to offer to their gods and the ancient Egyptians made many kinds of baked products sweetened with honey. In medieval Europe, fruitcakes and gingerbread were quite popular because they could last for many months.

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