So according to Merriam Webster bread is: a usually baked and leavened food made of a mixture whose basic constituent is flour or meal
And cake is: A: a breadlike food made from a dough or batter that is usually fried or baked in small flat shapes and is often unleavened B: a sweet baked food made from a dough or thick batter usually containing flour and sugar and often shortening, eggs, and a raising agent (such as baking powder)
And yet some people don’t think that cake is bread.
What’s your opinion?
Yes, cake is bread. This is controversial because of the savoury vs. sweet distinction we have, but there’s no consistent way to include all the breads of the world without including Western cakes too.
I think saying cake is bread is like saying scrambled eggs is an omelette.
Isn’t it more like saying an omelette is scrambled eggs? And yes, actually, the only difference between a scramble and omelette is shape.
The ingredients used in both are also different. Don’t have to be, but usually are.
Interesting. What would you expect in one but not the other? I can’t think of anything, but it might be regional.
Plain scrambled eggs would be the scramble equivalent of a baguette with just flour, water and salt. An omelette loaded with things might be more like the cake.
Exactly. And there are sweet brrads like brioche that are almost cakes. And plain cakes like banana “bread”. By point exactly is that scrambled eggs are more usually plain, and omelettes are more usually rich with other ingredients, but prepared differently, like how bread is kneaded but cake not.
I’d say cakes are all bread, but not all bread is cake. Likewise, I’d say omelettes are a type of egg dish, as are plain scrambled eggs, but not all egg dishes are one of those.
If you kept to Western cuisine you could argue bread as a distinct category both within “homogeneous baked goods” or something, but then ingera (for example) would probably end up being a cake, and that’s not quite right. It’s more important that bread include all solid grain-based staples the world over than that it exclude Western cake, IMO.