His chef refined the recipe, using brioche dough and adding raisins. The king named the cake after one of the characters in his favorite book, Ali Baba; the name became shortened to baba. Not all babas are rhum babas; baba refers to the shape. Today, rhum babas are made a variety of shapes, including fluted (Bundt-like, as in the photo above), unfluted circle molds and individual, brioche-like portions. See also savarin.

BABKA

A yeast ring originating in Eastern European, baked with raisins or other dried fruit in the dough. Similar to coffee cake, without the glaze or streusel. Today it also is also made in a loaf shape. Some babkas, such as the one in the photo at right, are made in the style of a marble cake, swirled with chocolate, as a variation on the traditional dried fruit.

BACCA DI MONTAGNA CAKE

A lovely summer cake, the name means “berries from the mountain” or mountain berries. The white sponge cake layered with almond pastry cream is topped with wild blueberries and raspberries covered with a natural jelly glaze. The sides are pressed with almond biscotti crumbs.

BAKED ALASKA

This dessert is ice cream encased in meringue and browned in an oven. Though it did not get its current name until 1896, it was invented in 1804 by Benjamin Thompson Rumford (1753-1814), an American-born physicist who became a British subject during the American Revolution. The dessert was the by-product of his study of the resistance of stiffly beaten egg whites to the induction of heat. He named the dessert Omelette Surprise. Later versions added sponge cake underneath the ice cream, the recipe that is common today.

BATTENBERG CAKE  or WINDOW
CAKE

A light sponge cake covered in marzipan with a checkerboard interior. One layer is dyed pink to contrast with the yellow cake; the layers are cut into uniform logs and joined with apricot jam into one cake. The origin of the name is obscure; one theory claims that the cake was created to celebrate the 1884 marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Alice, to Prince Louis of Battenberg. The four squares representing each of the four Battenberg princes: Louis, Alexander, Henry and Francis Joseph. Prince Louis of Battenberg is the father of Admiral of the Fleet Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, grandfather of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, consort of Queen Elizabeth II, and great-grandfather of Prince Charles.

BATTER

Batter is the uncooked material from which cakes are made. The main ingredients generally include flour, eggs, sugar, butter, flavoring (almond, chocolate, vanilla, etc.) and sometimes milk, cream or sour cream. These are the same ingredients as in a dough; the only difference is that a batter is thinner in consistency. The word comes from the French “battre,” meaning “to beat.”

 

BIRTHDAY CAKE

This generally refers to a frosted layer cake, decorated with roses or other themes that honor the interests of the celebrant. It typically has the inscription,“Happy Birthday” and the celebrant’s name. Tradition is to include one candle for each year—up to a certain point, when discretion and the surface area of the cake recommend only one or a few candles. The custom may have begun in ancient Greece with honey cakes. Ancient Romans also celebrated their 50th year with a honey cake. Much later, cakes celebrated birthdays of young children in Germany. In medieval England, coins were mixed into the batter and the tradition continues there today. From early times, fire sent signals to the gods; today, one makes a private wish while blowing out the candles on one’s cake.

 

BLACK BOTTOM CAKE

A cake fashioned after the black bottom pie, which has a chocolate layer bottom and a vanilla pudding top. In the cake version, a chocolate layer is topped with a cream cheese/chocolate chip layer, which bakes into a cheesecake-like top.

BLACK FOREST CAKE

A chocolate layer cake, filled with Kirsch-flavored whipped cream and sour Morello cherries and traditionally frosted with whipped cream and chocolate curls. The cake is believed to have originated in the late 16th century in the Black Forest region of Germany. The area is known for its sour Morello cherries and Kirschwasser, a clear brandy made from the cherries. Read more about the history of the Black Forest Cake, including a recipe.

BLACKOUT CAKE

A blackout cake is a very dark chocolate layer cake, filled and frosted with dark chocolate pudding and covered in chocolate crumbs. It was developed in New York during World War II, named after the blackout drills performed by the Civilian Defense Corps. When the Navy sent ships to sea from the Brooklyn Navy Yard at night, the streetlights were turned off and the windows of Brooklyn were “blacked out” to avoid silhouetting the battleships against the city.

BLONDIE or BLONDE BROWNIE or
BUTTERSCOTCH BROWNIE

According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, by the 1950s, butterscotch or vanilla brownies were described as “blonde brownies.” Blondies are a “blonde” or golden bar cookie, the result of adding brown sugar to a vanilla dough base. The brown sugar plus butter creates the butterscotch flavor. While brownies can be cakey or fudgy style, blondies are always cake-style. They lack the chocolate that provides fudginess and require leaveners to achieve their cake texture (not required by fudgy-style chocolate brownies). Blondies can include chocolate chips or chopped nuts; butterscotch chips, peanut butter chips and toffee bits are also popular additions, When shredded coconut is added to the batter, the blondie becomes a Congo bar. Here’s a delicious recipe and the history of the blondie.

BOSTON CREAM PIE

Just as the cheesecake is really a pie, the Boston Cream Pie is really a cake: two layers of sponge cake filled with vanilla custard and glazed with chocolate. It is the descendant of the early American pudding-cake pie. The first reference, a recipe published in 1855, calls it a “pudding pie cake” and had a powdered sugar topping, which evolved to the current chocolate glaze. So why is it called a pie? The answer is most likely that, in the mid-19th century pie tins were more common than cake pans. The distinction between calling something pie or cake was more flexible than it is today. The cake might well have been baked in pie tins.

BOUCHON

A small, bite-size chocolate cake with brownie-like qualities. Bouchon is the French word for cork, and the cakes are baked in tin that produces cork shapes. Since French recipes tend to be on the bittersweet rather than the sugary side, they go well with a demi-sec or Pinot Noir-based Champagne—all the more reason to celebrate! They are a signature pastry at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery, where mini chocolate chips are baked into the batter (photo at right) and the tops are dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

BREAD

There is a transition between sweet breads and low-sugar cakes baked in loaf pans, such as carrot bread and banana bread. What’s the difference between a banana bread and a banana cake? The obvious difference is that banana bread (or other bread) is baked in a loaf pan while a cake is baked in a round, square or rectangular cake pan. A less obvious distinction is that the bread style of cake, as a quickbread*, is leavened with baking soda. In general, loaf cakes or “breads” also have a denser crumb, a rougher texture and often less sugar than their cake counterparts.

BROWN BETTY

Most often found in recipes for a Brown Betty or an Apple Brown Betty, a betty is like a pie without the crust. Sugared fruit is topped with buttered breadcrumbs and baked. The dish and name date back to Colonial times, but the original “Betty” is lost to history; the brown presumably refers to the browning of the fruit, as there is no brown sugar. See also crisp.

 

BROWNIES & BARS

While cake-like brownies and bars (like lemon bars) are baked in cake pans and have a dense, cakey texture, they are actually classified as bar cookies, not cakes. See the different types of cookies, and read the origin of brownies.

BÛCHE DE NOËL

French for “yule log” or “Christmas Log.” Instead of gathering around the Christmas tree, French families gather around a Yule log burning in the fireplace. Sometime after 1870, a Parisian pâtissier was inspired by the festivity to create the first bûche de Noël, a chocolate frosted roulade, baked in a jelly roll pan. To imitate the log, a roll of génoise (sponge cake) is covered in chocolate buttercream that is textured to resemble bark. Smaller pieces of cake, also covered in buttercream, are affixed to the main roll to represent trimmed branches. The ends of the roll and the cut faces of the branches are frosted with vanilla cream to imitate cut wood. The log is decorated with holly leaves made of icing or marzipan, and meringue mushrooms. Fresh berries and powdered sugar (to resemble snow) can also be used. Today’s modern pâtissier make futuristic logs, with angular shapes, decorated in silver, like this one by Maison Kayser, enrobed in white chocolate with white chocolate slabs on the ends:

BUNDT CAKE

The Bundt cake was born in 1950, after the Bundt pan was created by H. David Dahlquist, the founder of Nordic Ware, a Minneapolis-based manufacturer of kitchenware products. He did so at the request of members of the Minneapolis chapter of Hadassah, a Jewish women’s service organization, based on a fluted ceramic kugelhopf cake mold from Europe that belonged to the mother of one of the members. The original kugelhopf, a Viennese specialty, is a sweet yeast bread similar to brioche and panettone. Over the years, denser cakes were baked in the same fluted molds. Dahlquist modified the design by introducing folds in the fluted edges, and fashioned the pan out of aluminum.

BUTTER CAKE

A butter cake is a cake made with shortening—butter, margarine, oil or vegetable shortening. They are finer-grained than fluffy sponge cakes, and thus are easier to make into white, yellow and chocolate layer cakes and loaf cakes. The American butter cake evolved from the English pound cake. In addition to butter, eggs, sugar and flour, they use a chemical leavener (baking powder or baking soda) to rise. Examples include coconut cake, cream cake, pound cake and queen cake.

BUTTERCREAM

A frosting and filling made of unsalted butter, either egg yolks or egg whites, sugar and flavorings. There are many recipes for versions both cooked and uncooked. Buttercream can be variously flavored, including chocolate, coffee, lemon, lime, nut (e.g. pistachio), orange, peppermint, strawberry and vanilla.

 

 

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