Types of Cakes

There are many different types of cakes and many different ways of dividing them into various categories, but most bakers categorize cakes by ingredients and mixing method. Home bakers prefer to categorize cakes by flavoring—i.e., chocolate cakes, fruit cakes, and so on—which is helpful when you’re trying to decide what to eat, but not as helpful when you’re trying to understand how best to make a cake. Depending on how the batter is prepared, you will find that the final texture and color, if it is a yellow or white cake   varies.

Below is a comprehensive but by no means exhaustive list of the basic types of cakes.

1. Butter Cake

Any recipe for cake that begins “cream butter and sugar” is a butter cake. After the creaming, you add eggs to aerate the batter a bit, flour (and sometimes another liquid, like milk) to give it structure and texture, and baking powder or baking soda to ensure that it rises in the oven. Different types of cake batter within the butter cake family include chocolate, white, yellow and marble; for white and yellow cakes coloring typically depends on whether they have whole eggs, or extra egg yolks in them (yellow cake) or egg whites only (white cake).

2. Pound Cake

Pound cake is a relative of butter cake. It’s so called because it can be measured as a matter of proportion: a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs, and a pound of flour. In some pound cake recipes, you’ll see the eggs separated and the egg whites whipped and folded into the batter, to leaven it; in other recipes you’ll find leaveners like baking soda and baking powder, bringing it well into the butter-cake fold. These cakes are usually very lightly flavored and served plain or topped with a simple glaze or water icing. A pound cake is usually baked in a loaf or Bundt pan. Many coffee cakes, sour cream cakes, and fruit crumb cakes are variations of pound cake.

3. Sponge Cake

Any recipe that contains no baking soda or baking powder but lots of whipped eggs or egg whites? That’s a sponge cake and there are several different types of sponge cake. which will be called different things wherever you are.

4. Genoise Cake

In Italy and France, a sponge cake is called genoise; in genoise, whole eggs are beaten with sugar until they’re thick and ribbony, and then flour (and sometimes butter) is added and the batter is baked; the result is wonderful baked in a round cake pan and simply frosted, but genoise is also pliable enough to be baked in a jelly-roll pan and rolled up into a roulade.

5. Biscuit Cake

Biscuit cakes are another type of sponge cake containing both egg whites and yolks, but, unlike genoise, the whites and yolks are whipped separately and then folded back together. This creates a light batter that’s drier than a genoise but holds its shape better after mixing.

6. Angel Food Cake

Angel food cakes are made with egg whites alone and no yolks. The whites are whipped with sugar until very firm before the flour is gently folded in, resulting in a snowy-white, airy, and delicate cake that marries beautifully with fruit. Most angel food cakes have a spongy, chewy quality derived from their relatively high sugar content and the absence of egg yolks.

7. Chiffon Cake

A classic chiffon cake is kind of a cross between an oil cake and a sponge cake. It includes baking powder and vegetable oil, but the eggs are separated and the whites are beaten to soft peaks before being folded into the batter. This creates a cake with a tender crumb and rich flavor like an oil cake, but with a lighter texture that’s more like a sponge cake.

8. Baked Flourless Cake

These include baked cheesecakes and flourless chocolate cakes. For easy removal, they’re often made in a springform pan, though some can also be made in regular round layer cake pans. Often the filled pan is placed in a larger pan that’s half-filled with water to insulate the delicate, creamy cake from the oven’s strong bottom heat, which might give the baked cake a porous rather than silky texture.

9. Unbaked Flourless Cake

These types of cakes are typically molded in a dessert ring or springform pan then simply chilled before unmolding. They include unbaked cheesecakes and mousse cakes. They often have a crust or bottom layer that’s baked before the mousse is added.

10. Red Velvet Cake

Red velvet cake is essentially a butter cake, though it is frequently made with oil instead of butter. In addition, cocoa is added to the cake batter to create the distinct red velvet flavor — originally it was a reaction between buttermilk and the raw cocoa widely available at the time of red velvet’s inception that caused a ruddy-hued crumb. These days you’ll more often find them tinted with food coloring.