cake is: A: a breadlike food

Why are you questioning the definition you’ve provided?

All words are made up, so if you would like to define cake as a bread then I see no problem with that personally.

I am unsure if others would agree with you, but they might given specific context.

Personally, I don’t care too much, all I know is that cake it delicious.

P.S. There are definitely cakes that are not at all bread like though, like ice cream cake or cheese cake etc.

Cake is not bread.

According to Urban Dictionary, cake is: Another word meaning ass or butt.

My argument: Bread is leavened and whose basic mixture is flour or meal. (Usually baked, but so are most cakes so I’ll leave this as moot.)

If a cake can meet those requirements, Yes, it would be a bread.

Otherwise, it would be a breadlike food. In the cake definition it uses a “breadlike food” probably due to to the latter half of the statement “often unleavened”. This would lead me to presume that most cakes, while breadlike, do not meet the requirements. It’d be more reasonable to make a statement on the majority (breadlike) than minority (Bread).

Not bread. Cake doesn’t use yeast (leavened basically means using yeast). Bread does.

Cake uses eggs, bread doesn’t.

Cake is expensive to buy or make. Bread isn’t as bad.

I think we clearly know it’s not bread. Back me up here someone. I’m the person being referred to in the OP btw.

As a general rule, I would see in a majority of cases that in a bread, gluten development is encouraged to provide a chewy texture. In a cake, you want to avoid gluten development to have a light and fluffy texture.

Special bread flours have high gluten content and cake flours have lower gluten for that reason.

Now we of course do have many exceptions, such as banana bread is low gluten and very sweet, while many biscuit recipes call for cake flour, but no one would call a biscuit a cake. In both those cases, I don’t think you would like a banana bread or biscuit that has the strong gluten structure that a proper baguette has.

Cakes (especially something like donuts) can be yeast risen, and some breads like matzo or tortillas have no leavening, or breads can use chemical leavening like Irish soda bread.

Whenever it comes down to definitions I like to go to expert definitions rather than common language. For food (are tomatoes a fruit?) I use FDA definitions, for which the definition of bread excludes what you’d mean by “cake”.

• Layman readable synopsis (bakerpedia)
• Sec. 136.110 Bread, rolls, and buns. (fda)
• Sec. 136.115 Enriched bread, rolls, and buns. (fda)

I don’t think the FDA defines cake, but it does specify how different types of cakes, brownies and such should be labeled (search for “cake” here).

If it fits loosely under the food pyramid category and I can therefore eat a ton of it and say it’s just my daily bread, then yes.

But sugars are at the top and we all know the higher a thing is the more important it is. Can we double-dips on the chart? Also yes.

it's a doctrinal difference

also you could possibly look at something like gluten formation, but i suspect there's a gluteny cake out there as well as a glutenless bread

Cake was bread historically

I think all other dough-based dishes derive from bread really, since I believe it’s the most basis thing ye can make…

Nowadays, my definition of modern cake = bread + defined-sweetness + fluffiness and softness

Although clear examples of the difference between cake and bread are easy to find, the precise classification has always been elusive. For example, banana bread may be properly considered either a quick bread or a cake. Yeast cakes are the oldest and are very similar to yeast bread. Such cakes are often very traditional in form and include such pastries as babka and stollen.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cake#Comparison_with_bread

US bread taste like bread, it’s soft and sugary.

I would turn it the other way breads are a sort of cake but more minimalist (water, flour, yeast, and a pinch of salt) and then there is some pimped bread which moves toward the cake, like when you add milk or even eggs

I think the clue is in the definition you posted:

a breadlike food.

As a german I would say that bread and cake are very similar, but distinct things, but there border is very blurry. Take brioche, I think that’s more of a bread, but it’s very soft, moist and sweet, so it leans heavily towards cake. But I’d say in general bread is more savory or neutral, made to be eaten with something, and cake is sweet and supposed to be a food on it’s own.