History of Cake.

            Cake has been a common choice of food in celebrative occasions such as birthday celebrations and weddings. In weddings, they serve the role of bearing symbolic meanings and providing additional visual treats more than being considered as food for dealing with hunger during the ceremonies or celebrations, and this reflects the values of the culture or the time period on marriage. This phenomenon has been more and more mature and even overly emphasized as the development of cake market and industries grows.

In medieval times, there were no particular sweets associated with weddings, later on “plum cakes or “great cakes” became increasingly associated with festive occasions, though not exclusively nuptials.” (Wilson, Bee). At this point, the cakes were featured in the occasions based on their basic function as a sharable form of food. The marking of the cakes in 17^th century Britain of the wedding cakes as “bride’s pies” instead of cakes, the appearance of bridal breads to be ceremonially broken, as well as the almond-pasted, hard-iced fruit cake in weddings tied with the cutting ritual, have added an extra layer of symbolic meaning of the cakes (Wilson). The cake started symbolizing the bride and hints the associated culture’s value of marriage. For example royal icing stands for a public declaration of love, fruit cake’s longevity suggests the loyalty between the couple is everlasting; in contrast the American typical bride cake being white gateau with perishable buttercream icing surely made it a more romantic type of wedding cake, but at the same time displayed its lack of the responsibility of bearing the message of a long-lasting marriage (Wilson).

Cake toppers also occupy a significant role in the field of attachment of different symbolic meanings to wedding cakes. The development of cake toppers is similar to many other products we have today. Starting from the basic which focuses on fulfilling its function as decorative objects representing the couple, to including more variety of religious, ethical, and unique features (such as music boxes) that shift the focus from the taste of the cake to its visual add-ons. (Allen, Emily) Yet, the cake toppers are designed to be lasted for a day but not for life, which is not echoing with the meaning of marriage of being permanent.

Modern consumers look for more visual stimulation and temporary ornaments from a wedding cake. However, it is important for us to be reminded the meaning of wedding, which is not about an instant moment of amazement but witnessing the beginning of an intended to be eternal marriage.

The Grand Finale (sort of failed)

All of you have seen the last one, so forgive me for not having as many pictures taken with this one for time issues.

Things were a bit screwed up during the making, I accidentally added the sugar into the mixture of cocoa powder and flour. I thought it'd be fine at first since they all look dusty, but not really.

From this I know the reason to pour in sugar first and mix, then the rest. Otherwise I won't get the volume I want, and it will end up being smaller and denser than what I wanted.

Also for the caster sugar part, it was pretty hilarious. I used it at home, then it melted on the way to school, then I borrowed some more from public market's muffin shop, then it melted again.

It's the texture of the cake I guess, that's too absorptive to this kinda stuff.

Anyways, I learned a lot from this cake, a bit more than I did than the previous two.

I'd like to make more cakes in the future for sure, on special occasions.

Thanks for reading, wish ya'll a nice final week of school. 

A 9 inch Cheesecake.

I decided to make a cheesecake for the second one, assumed it to be harder than the first cake (chiffon cake) i made.

Surprisingly, it's in fact, much simpler. It was made of 4 packages of cream cheese, five eggs, 3/4 cup of milk, 1 cup of sugar, and 1/8 cup of flour. The bottom part of it (the crust part) was made of digestive cookie powder (smash them!), weighing 150g, and then mashed with some melted butter.

It's simpler for I only had to made the crust, apply them to the bottom of the baking pan, and then mash everything in a big bowl with my electric mixer, then done. pour into the pan and bake.

Let's just jump to the results.

Frozen for about 3 hours after taken out of oven.

That's the first slice. At this point, the center part of the cake was still a bit jello-like. I supposed it's because the freezing duration was too short.

Frozen over night, it became more solid in texture. Although the tip part was still a bit jello-like, overall it met my expectations.

Added on strawberry, too. They taste really well together.

The weakness of this cheesecake was the center part being a bit jello-like.

I'm thinking it's either needing more flour, or need to be baked longer.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the result.

For the next cake, I'll go for the unbelievable approach.

Most likely going to make the visual property of the cake being unbelievable, but not taste.

It may look confusing, daunting, or just not making sense, we'll see how it goes.

Or, I'll take another approach of being creative on my own, which is essentially the same thing as being unbelievable, except that I won't try to make it unbelievable.

Basically, I will try to not follow a given recipe for the last cake.

Thanks for reading!

Chiffon Cake Attempt

Chiffon cake, one of the most fundamental forms of cake.

I used baking flour, egg, sugar, vegetable oil, and a little bit of salt during the process,

which was referenced from many other bloggers who bake cakes.

It's one of the easier forms of cake, which I choose to start with.

It's light, creamy, and moist. Hard to describe, so let's just jump to the pictures.

Just baked and taken out of the stove!

Gotta place it like this for cooling.

Apparently the shape isn't perfect, most likely because I didn't shake it enough prior to baking, which the air left inside caused the void at the top (bottom when baking).

Mhmmmmm.

I think it was pretty delicious. The sweetness was just enough, and it was very soft and tender to bite.

This can be baked up by my families who tried it with objective minds.

None of it was left 6 hours after its birth.

The working process was quite smooth overall, and the hardest part for me was to separate the egg yolk and egg white while breaking them into bowls. I actually wasted 7 eggs there. God bless them.

The tools i got worked perfectly. The electric hand mixer and baking pans were all doing their jobs.

I would say I'm satisfied with the result, and for the next try I would pay more attention to breaking the eggs and the shaking action to get air out of the batter.

However, the various bloggers had many different methods of making the chiffon cake and I was quite confused at one point, but then I decided to stick to the basics mentioned in all the them. Next time I will try to be more prepared about the steps but not checking them while making.

For the next cake I'm thinking of a cheesecake. This will require more research, which will be committed in the following week.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave any comments or criticism!

I will also get entry 2 of the research of history of cake up, soon.

Hi all,

This is Kevin. I am about to do a project on exploring the maker culture of cake making. Cake has been known as a glorious form of food, that is edible, adorable, and completely digestible.

I have never bake a cake before, so this is most likely going to be challenging. I will do research on how to bake cakes from other amateur bakers' blogs, and start with the easiest kind to the rather more complicated forms of cake, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of creating the unbelievable cake.

The result cake is unbelievable for it is made by someone who has never bake a cake in his life. Perhaps the taste of it won't be impressive or even a total disaster, it is guaranteed to be edible.

Starting today, I will dedicate part of my own personal time to the culture of cake, by participating the cake forms on the internet, as well as purchase various kinds of cakes to taste as inspiration.

All the best. All hail all the unknown cakes.