Technically,
Bread is a combination of flour and water, with the addition of yeast for
leavening. FDA labelling states White Bread must be a minimum based on
flour weight of 2% salt, 2% sugar, 2% shortening and 2% milk powder. To be
classified as a dough, the principle ingredients must flour and water, in
that order.
All batter mixes and pastes such as quick breads, i.e. tea biscuits, banana
bread, muffins, are sweet goods.

Mr. Pastry

"Dee Randall" > wrote in message
...
> I've heard that when Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake," that cake
> was actually bread, and now people are a bit non-plussed about her
> statement.
> Dee
>
>
> "Alex Rast" > wrote in message
> ...
> > at Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:30:55 GMT in
> > > ,
> > (Ben) wrote :
> >
> > >Hi. My wife and I got into a discussion last night about the
> > >difference between bread and cake. She's European and says 1/2 of the
> > >stuff Americans call bread is cake (eg. Banana Bread). Is there a
> > >definative difference between bread and cake like ingredients, baking,
> > >etc?
> >
> > Like most non-technical words, there is at least some ambiguity. First,
I
> > will dismiss a few special cases.
> >
> > Preceded by "short-" both words change meaning from the standard.
> > Shortbread is a type of cookie, shortcake is a type of scone.
(Humorously,
> > I have to resort to the American "cookie" and the British "scone"
because
> > in Britain, a cookie is called a biscuit, where in America, a scone is
> > called a biscuit. So depending on one's POV, *both* shortbread and
> > shortcake are "biscuits"!)
> >
> > "Cake" in a non-baking context can refer to any food that's been
> compressed
> > into a solid block, usually with one definitely smallest dimension. Thus
> we
> > have rice cakes, yeast cakes, etc.
> >
> > But generally, at least by my way of looking at it, the difference
between
> > bread and cake is that in cake, the amount of eggs is sufficient to
> > contribute substantially to the *structure*, not just the *texture*.
That,
> > I realize, is a very vague point in itself, although in general cakes
will
> > be less dense than breads because once eggs start to have an impact on
the
> > structure, that impact is to make it lighter. In fact, a cake doesn't
have
> > to have any flour at all, thanks to the structure contribution of eggs,
> for
> > example flourless chocolate cake. However, a cake must have some other
> > contributor to structure besides eggs, otherwise things like souffle
would
> > be a cake. It's all quite fuzzy and the boundaries overlap to some
extent.
> > But this is at least a close approximation to the way I see things being
> > named.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Alex Rast
> >
> > (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)
>
>