Sweet breads, cake, muffins, and cupcakes are all delicious treats that take some finesse to make right. But what is the difference between bread and cake, or muffins and cupcakes? It may be hard to pinpoint the differences between these baked goods based on their ingredients alone, and instead one needs to consider the method by which these ingredients are combined.
For intimate gatherings or parties with diverse tastes, cupcakes can be a great choice. They offer variety and convenience, and everyone gets their piece of happiness. For larger, more formal events, a beautifully designed cake can add a touch of elegance and tradition.
Very few young children actually like cake, although many do appreciate the icing. A cupcake happens to be the perfect vehicle for getting icing to little mouths! And the smaller the hands, the smaller the cupcake needs to be. Preschoolers often struggle with forks and cake – and it’s a pretty sure bet that at a party of 12, at least one slice of cake will somehow slide right off the plate and into the preschooler’s lap. If you serve cake to a group of prescholers, you can pretty much count on spending some time on your knees to scrub cake icing out of your dining room carpet after the party.
If the notion of serving cupcakes instead of cake just doesn’t have the right “feel” to you, I should hasten to point out that presentation is everything. If you put a dozen cupcakes on a serving tray, they are not going to look like much. You’ll need to dress them up a bit — and there are many ways to do this.
Many cake decorators also create beautiful cupcakes. Recently a mom brought to one of our parties an adorable teapot cake surrounded by 16 cupcakes decorated to look like individual teacups with candy handles. Adorable! But this party was for a little girl turning 9. Preschoolers would simply have dropped these beautiful teacups in their laps and onto the floor by attempting unsuccessfully to hold the cups by their candy handles. It would have been a disaster.
Cupcake trees are gaining in popularity, and I would be remiss if I failed to suggest one. A cupcake tree is a metal stand with individual holders for each cupcake, creating a tabletop presentation with height. But the truth is, I do not personally care for the look of cupcake trees. If you do, they are widely available at reasonable prices at any store selling kitchen goods.
My favorite way, and the method we use at The Party Fairy, is to use a tiered server. Height adds impact to anything served. But if you do not own a pretty tiered server, you can add impact to a simple flat serving tray, too, simply by placing some sort of tall, whimsical figurine in the center of the serving tray and surrounding it by cupcakes. This has the added advantage of allowing you to tie in the theme of the party. Check out toy stores and discount stores for perfect “finds.” A pirate part y, for example, could feature a tray of cupcakes surrounding anything from a toy pirate ship to a ceramic palm tree or a parrot. A future blog entry will offer some suggestions for where to find these kinds of inexpensive centerpieces and decorative items.
What’s the difference between bread vs. cake? Is cake considered a sweet bread? Do cake and bread have the same ingredients?
When most people think of bread they think of everyday staples like white, wheat and rye, whereas cakes are thought of as a treat for special occasions, and served as dessert. You may be inclined to think that bread is savory and cake is sweet, but is the distinction really so simple? In order to better understand the differences between cake and bread, it is important to understand the categories of each, and where the ambiguity exists.
Traditional breads are leavened with yeast – these include what we typically think of when bread comes to mind, whites, wheats, and ryes. Base ingredients in traditional breads include flour, active dry yeast, water, and a pinch of salt or sugar. Quick breads on the other hand are more similar to cakes in that they use a leavening agent such as baking sodas – these include banana breads and zucchini breads. These base ingredients for quick breads and cakes are the same – flour, leavening agent, eggs, fat, and a liquid – despite the addition of sugar in cake.
Cake is a kind of quick bread, but is much lighter in texture, always sweet, and often frosted or decorated. And although the definition of quick breads muddies the water in terms of the differences between cake and bread, traditional bread and cake are very different. The primary difference between bread and cake is that yeast is used as the leavening agent, but other ingredients including sugar, eggs, milk, and fat also lead to differences in texture between the two. Another way cakes differ from bread is that solid fat is creamed with the sugar, creating a much softer texture than bread.
How Cupcakes Differ from Cake | Cupcake Baking
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