Table set with a wedding cake and fruit – 1870
As a baker I have baked tonnes of cakes but have always been intrigued by how, when and where were cakes invented. I came across so much information and would want to share with you all! If Wikipedia is to be believed then the term ‘cake’ is of Viking origin from Old Norse word ‘Kaka’.
The journey from Bread to Cakes!
Earlier bread & cakes were often confused and didn’t have much of a distinguishing factor. It all started as bread and the discovery of butter, eggs, sugar & honey lead to sweet cake type inventions (sweet bread). It was called sweet bread as yeast was used as a leavening agent. Till date, no one really knows when the bread transitioned into to a sweet bread (start of cakes I presume).
I read a beautiful article on howstuffworks.com and am sharing some information from it. According to food historians the Egyptians who were good bakers and made honey-sweetened bread & cakes were the ones who started modifying the bread!
The Romans probably perfected the practice of adding yeast as a leavening agent and later Italian’s in the 16th century developed the art of adding whipped eggs to the batter. Although both methods produced lighter cakes these were time-consuming methods and hence by mid-1800’s Baking powder and Bicarbonate Soda were invented. Over the years Greeks gave us cheesecakes and French the gateaux.
Baking a Luxury in middle ages
In earlier days Baking was a luxury owing to expensive ingredients and oven was not an equipment that everyone had at home. It was said that the rich ate the fine floured bread and cakes whereas the poor eat the rye and black bread.Ovens then were owned by wealthy people and were often huge and constructed in their backyard like the Masonry oven shown below.
From 16th century as globalisation grew, ingredients prices dropped, cookbooks were published and by 19th-century affordable oven (as shown in the image below) came into the picture. This gave the middle-class access to baking! Here’s a little trivia for you, the first ever cookbook was ‘Hedypatheia’ (pleasant living of life and luxury) was written by a Sicilian Greek named Archestratus in 350 BC in which he advises on what foods to be eaten in the Mediterranean world.
Ancient-Greek-portable-oven-17th-century-BCE
How did cakes make an entry into India?
Thanks to Baputti Mambally cakes made their way into India. He owned Mambally Royal Biscuit Factory. In 1800’s when Mr Brown, a British man who owned cinnamon plantations asked Baputti to make a cake and gave him the recipe. Baputti agreed and made one of the finest cake! After this, his bakery started making cakes eventually exporting his delicacies to different parts of the world.
Lastly, sharing some interesting pictures of oldest cakes… Enjoy!
