A layer cake is a cake consisting of multiple layers, usually held together by frosting or another type of filling, such as jam or other preserves. Most cake recipes can be made into layer cakes; butter cakes and sponge cakes are common choices. Frequently, the cake is covered with icing, but sometimes, the sides are left undecorated, so that the filling and the number of layers are visible.
Popular flavor combinations include the German chocolate cake, red velvet cake, Black Forest cake, and carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Many wedding cakes are decorated layer cakes.
In the mid-19th century, modern cakes were first described in English. One of the first recipes for layer cakes was published in Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book, published in London in 1894.
Read more about Layer Cake: Older Forms, Comparison
Famous quotes containing the words layer and/or cake:
“The writer in me can look as far as an African-American woman and stop. Often that writer looks through the African-American woman. Race is a layer of being, but not a culmination.”
—Thylias Moss, African American poet. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal (May 12, 1994)
“We had hardly got out of the streets of Bangor before I began to be exhilarated by the sight of the wild fir and spruce tops, and those of other primitive evergreens, peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like the sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)