This Basic Cake Recipes Chart contains the most commonly made basic cakes. In this chart you can easily see the differences between Angel Food Cake and Pound Cake, and all the cakes in between these two extreme crumb types.
Generally, the amount of fat and type of fat will determine if a cake is light as a cloud or rich and dense.
With this Basic Cake Recipes Chart, you can easily see the change in ingredient proportions for each cake type plus the methods used in mixing the batters.
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Your inspiration for your next cake is here in the Basic Cake Recipes Chart!
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Cake Types
- Angel Food. The angel food cake contains no egg yolks and no fat. It is leavened by creating an egg foam batter with only egg whites that may contain cream of tartar to help the egg white whip up tall and fluffy, giving extra lift to the cake as it bakes.
- Sponge. A sponge cake is made by separating the whites from the yolks and beating the whites and yolks separately before combining them with the rest of the ingredients.
- Chiffon. The chiffon, like my Strawberry Almond Chiffon Cake, is similar to a sponge cake, but cooking oil is added to give extra richness.
- Butter. Both the butter cake and the pound cake are made with the creaming method to lighten the texture of the butter to add more lift to the cake.
- 1-2-3-4 Cake. Between the butter cake and the pound cake is the 1-2-3-4 cake. It is rich in buttery flavor but not as dense a crumb as a pound cake. These cakes can be made by both the creaming method and the all in one method.
- Pound Cake. This famous cake is named for the fact that it contains one pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. Its dense crumb from the high fat content is legendary and the cake is mixed via the creaming method.
Unshortened versus Shortened
Unshortened cakes have no additional fat added to the batter. Shortened cakes have fat, like shortening, butter, or cooking oil added to the batter before baking.
Methods for Mixing Batters
Egg Foam Batter Method
An egg foam batter begins by separating eggs and beating the whites until stiff peaks form. In some recipes, sugar is gradually added to egg whites as they are beaten to make a meringue as the base of the batter.
When egg yolks are beaten separately and folded into the egg whites, a sponge cake is being made.
Angel food cakes have no yolks added to the batter making it the leanest egg foam cake you can make.
Creaming Method
This method of mixing batter requires that a solid fat, like butter or shortening, is beaten with sugar until it is light and fluffy in color and texture. Eggs and flavorings are then added, followed by dry ingredients.
The purpose of this method is to increase aeration in a batter, so cakes and other baked goods become lighter in texture. For more information, see my detailed pictorial on The Creaming Method.
All in One Method
This method of mixing cake batter means that all of the ingredients are added to a bowl at once and mixed until well combined. It may seem wrong, but it works amazingly well for some cake batters. I use the All in One Method to mix my Butter Pecan Rum Cake.
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