Overview
The word cake (ケーキ, kēki) in Japan, is generally thought of as a gorgeous, sweet western dessert made of sponge dough decorated with whipped cream or chocolate and garnished with fruit. However, the English word cake originally meant baked sweets in general, and in this sense, Japanese kaki no tane is also called rice cake.
In French, it is equivalent to gateau, and in German, to kuchen.
Most cakes are made by combining some kind of grain powder (often flour), a binding agent (often gluten found in eggs or flour), sugar (sugar, etc.), fat (vegetable oil, butter, lard, schmaltz, etc.), water (water, milk, buttermilk, fruit puree, etc.), and an expanding agent (yeast, baking soda, baking powder, etc.) are blended together to make the product.
In recent years, an increasing number of specialty stores have begun selling cakes made with rice flour instead of wheat flour and soy milk cream instead of whipped cream, in consideration of allergies.
