History of Cake

The most primitive peoples in the world began making cakes shortly after they discovered flour. In medieval England, the cakes that were described in writings were not cakes in the conventional sense. They were described as flour-based sweet foods as apposed to the description of breads, which were flour based foods without sweetening.
Bread and cake were somewhat interchangeable words with the term “cake” being used for smaller breads. The earliest examples were found among the remains of Neolithic villages where archeologists discovered simple cakes made from crushed grains, moistened, compacted and probably cooked on a hot stone. . Today’s version of this early cake would be oat cakes, though now we think of them more as a biscuit or cookie.
By the middle of the 18th century, yeast had fallen into disuse as a raising agent for cakes in favor of beaten eggs. Once as much air as possible were beaten in, the mixture would be poured into moulds, often very elaborate creations, but sometimes as simple as two tin hoops placed on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. It is from these cake hoops that our modern cake pans developed.
Cakes were considered a symbol of well being by early American cooks on the east coast, with each region of the country having their own favorites. By the early 19th century cakes were an accepted food of middle-class cooking, and no longer just for the rich.