History of International Cake Day
Our favorite confection, cake, has a pretty long history. The word ‘cake’ itself is of Viking origin, and is derived from the Old Norse word ‘kaka.’ The Greeks also had their own cake which was baked using flour mixed with other ingredients such as eggs, milk, nuts, and honey. They also had a cake called ‘satura,’ which was flat and had a heavy consistency.
The word “cake’ took on a different name during the period of Roman rule, and that was ‘placenta,’ a Greek dish derived from their term for cake. A placenta was made from many layers of dough and was typically baked on a pastry base or inside a pastry case. The Greeks used beer to leaven it and included in the mixture was cheese made using goat’s milk. The basic bread dough was sometimes enriched with butter, eggs, and honey, as a sophisticated kind of bread that produced a sweet and cake-like baked good. This way of cooking was a common ancient Roman practice.
Early cakes in England also started off as regular bread, with the most obvious difference between them being their shape, that is, the more rounded, flat shape of cakes. Another difference is the method of production, where cakes are turned over while baking, as opposed to bread which was left upright throughout the baking process.