 So many cakes, so little time. This delectable mousse cake with a caramel topping is from FinancierPastries.com.
June 2008 |
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Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Cookies, Cakes & PastryCake GlossaryPage 4: Terms G To K
There are thousands of different types of cakes in the world today; each culture has its specialties, most of which never reach our shores. Here, we present some of the more popular types one is likely to encounter—or at least hear about—in the U.S. If your favorite isn’t represented, tell us about it. After you’ve checked out the cakes, take a look at our other food glossaries—an easy way to get up to speed on more than fifty different food categories. Most related to this Cake Glossary are our Chocolate Glossary, Custard Glossary, Dessert Sauce Glossary, Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts Glossary and Sugar Glossary. Click on the letter of the alphabet in the bar below to get to a term. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z This glossary is protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced in whole or part. GANACHEThe definition of ganache is both short—a mixture of chocolate and cream—and lengthy. In the cake world, ganache refers to a very rich, thick, velvety icing made with melted chocolate and heavy cream. It is semi-firm and has a nice sheen. When it is beaten with butter as a filling and frosting for cakes and pastries, it is known as ganache beurre or ganache soufflé. In its heated, liquid state, it can be poured over cakes and pastries as a glaze. Average chocolate makes average ganache, great chocolate makes great ganache. Also see the definition for ganache in the chocolate glossary. GALETTE
GÂTEAUGâteau is the French word for cake. It is generally a more delicate and complex confection than an American layer cake, with a génoise base and a cream or buttercream filling. It can be light or rich, rectangular or round, and often has fresh decoration such as fruit or whipped cream that makes it perishable. Gâteau can also be very elaborately decorated with spun sugar and chocolate. GÉNOISEGénoise is a type of sponge cake made with butter, so-called because it was invented in the Italian city of Genoa. It is used to make round cakes, square cakes and jelly rolls. A light mixture of whipped eggs and sugar, with flour and butter folded, it bakes into a firm texture that allows it to be cut into thin layer that are the base for most French gâteaux. Citrus juice and zest, cocoa powder, nuts and other flavors can be added to the batter; the baked sponge can be layered with any number of flavored buttercreams, whipped creams, liqueur- or other flavored syrups (coffee, rose, orange water), sprinkled with toasted nuts, praline and fruit, topped with sugar icing, whipped cream or ganache—not to mention elaborately decorated with buttercream flowers, glazed fruit, marzipan, spun sugar and buttercream. The possibilities are truly endless. GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKEA chocolate layer cake with a rich coconut pecan filling and a chocolate frosting, topped with more coconut. German chocolate cake does not come from Germany or from GROOM’S CAKEA southern tradition, a separate wedding cake was baked called the “groom’s cake,” to HUGUENOT TORTEAn apple-pecan torte that is a famous dessert of Charleston, South Carolina. The recipe Photo of Huguenot torte courtesy of American Egg Board, which offers a recipe for the torte.
HUMMINGBIRD CAKEAnother southern tradition, the recipe was first submitted by a reader to Southern Hummingbird Cake is made with light brown muscovado sugar. Get this recipe is from Billington’s.
ICE BOX CAKE
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A galette is an open-face pie or tart (depending on the tart), although some classify it as a cake. It is flat, with a flaky, turned-up crust that creates a bowl around the fruit inside (see photo at right of a blackberry galette).
German immigrants. German chocolate is a milder, sweeter baking chocolate (milk chocolate would not be invented until 1876, by Daniel Peter in Vevey, Switzerland). According to Kraft Foods, which now owns Walter Baker & Company, German chocolate cake was created in 1852 by Sam German, an Englishman who worked in the U.S. for Walter Baker & Company. Originally called Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate, the apostrophe-s was later dropped, adding to the confusion. The popular recipe for German Chocolate Cake was submitted to a Dallas newspaper almost 100 years later, in 1957, by a Texas housewife who may or may not have invented it. In light of the resulting demand for German chocolate, General Foods (since merged with Kraft) sent the recipe to newspapers nationwide, and the cake became a national hit. Numerous recipes can be found that are called “German Chocolate Cake” but contain none of the differentiating ingredients (German chocolate, coconut, pecans).
be sliced and boxed for the unmarried women attending the wedding. The cake would taken home and placed under her pillow, with hopes of dreaming of one’s future husband. (The “cake under the pillow” to engender dreams is a continuation of an old European tradition, but there was no separate groom’s cake.) Today, the groom’s cake reflects his tastes in cake, and a design that reflects his interests (chessboards, cowboy boots, sports themes). It tends to be a much smaller cake than the wedding cake, often just two large layers, and often chocolate.
was adapted from an apple pudding from the Mississippi delta Ozarks and served at Charleston’s Lowcountry-cuisine Huguenot Tavern in the 1940s. The cake is traditionally served with whipped cream and garnished with apple slices, pecan halves and fresh mint.
An ice box cake requires no baking. It is composed of cookies or lady fingers and whipped cream or pudding (some recipes used Jell-O), and set in the refrigerator. Chocolate and lemon are popular flavors. One famous recipe, printed on the Nabisco Chocolate Wafers box, stacks whipped cream and the wafers, and is called a zebra cake. Get the recipe for 
ICING
(some are elaborately braided) or cinnamon bread. Some are covered in bright sanding sugars that represent the Mardi Gras colors: green (faith), gold (power) and purple (justice). Others are filled with candied or glazed fruits; some wear gold paper crowns. The custom was brought to New Orleans in the late 1870s by French settlers, in whose homeland the cakes had been used to celebrate the Feast of Epiphany, or King’s Day. More recently, a small plastic baby gets baked into some cakes; the person who gets the piece with the baby is named king or queen—and must host the following year’s party. 
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