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?
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.
cake is: A: a breadlike food
Why are you questioning the definition you’ve provided?
If you google the question, you’ll get lots of people saying that cake isn’t bread, despite being similar.
I think it’s that people like certain levels of specificness. Like, bread, pizza, and broccoli are all foods, but if you said “I had a food for lunch” that’d sound weird.
It’s not necessarily that cake isn’t a type of bread or that the two aren’t closely related. It’s that we have a super-common and more specific word for it (cake) so it sounds awkward when you use a different word that might be technically accurate, but is a weird choice in practice.
Same for a lot of things. A hot dog and a sub are technically the same thing. But if a waiter dropped off your hot dog and said “here’s your pork sub”, you’d probably look at them funny.
You asked the question, “is a cake a sort of bread” and the dictionary is explicitly stating “cake is a breadlike food”.
Are you instead asking if “lots of people” is a more reliable source than the dictionary?
No but like something being bread like doesn’t mean that it is bread, just similar to bread.
Something can be breadlike without being bread, in a similar way to how whales are fishlike without being fish.
The dictionary doesn’t dictate how words should be used; it reports how people use them. Consulting a dictionary is a way to find out how “lots of people” use a word.
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.
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).
Never heard of fried cake. In my native language that’s sure a word not interchangeable with what I would translate cake to
Only if it has filling in the center specifically. Many cakes would actually be sandwiches by this definition, and those without filling would be toast.
Also, I take issue with all open-ended wraps being lumped in as sushi.
There is even at least one variety of cake literally called a sandwich, the Victoria Sandwich.
I guess going by this logic, bread is a calzone with bread filling. doesn’t make a lot of sense to me tbh.
Cake does not encapsulate and is therefore toast.
Many cakes have some sort of filling between flat layers and are therefore sandwiches.
Charlotte royale is a calzone, tho.
Cake can also be in layers with ingredients inbetween, making a sandwich.
The speciality cakes with images in them when you cut them could be considered sushi
vaguely threatening gesture You’re toast, cake.
This would technically only be true for cakes with filling - a normal cake doesn’t have 6 sides of carbs, it’s all the way through.
Wrong. Cake is a frosting sandwich.
A hotdog is a a taco, most certainly, but don’t calzones have stuff contained within?
I suppose jet thinks that brad is a calzone with bread/dough filling
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.
Ask yourself this: is it cooked?
If it is, it’s soup, if it’s not, it’s a salad.
And if some parts of it are cooked and some are not, it is a salad and a soup mixed in some way.
Pizza would just be soup. Sushi for example is a soup and salad combo, since the rice is cooked (soup) and the filling is usually fresh (salad)
I’ve never make a cake from dough. I’ve always make cake from batter.
My argument: Bread is leavened and whose basic mixture is flour or meal. (Usually baked, but so are most cakes so I’ll leave this as moot.)
If a cake can meet those requirements, Yes, it would be a bread.
Otherwise, it would be a breadlike food. In the cake definition it uses a “breadlike food” probably due to to the latter half of the statement “often unleavened”. This would lead me to presume that most cakes, while breadlike, do not meet the requirements. It’d be more reasonable to make a statement on the majority (breadlike) than minority (Bread).
Irish soda bread
These comments could be part of an episode of Qi.
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
Cake doesn’t use yeast (leavened basically means using yeast).
some cakes do use yeast, and something like baking powder is a leavening agent
Cake uses eggs, bread doesn’t.
brioche
Cake is expensive to buy or make. Bread isn’t as bad.
brioche
Rye bread looks like chocolate cake. So… is bread a sort of cake?
Cake is just uppity bread. Acting all fancy and getting dressed up for special occasions. You changed, bro.
