Spice cake is a type of cake that is traditionally flavored with a mixture of spices. The cake can be prepared in many varieties. Predominant flavorings include spices such as cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger, and nutmeg.
Description
In Medieval cuisine, a spice cake, also called spice bread, was a flavorful, sweetened yeast bread. It was typically sweetened with honey, as sugar was largely unavailable in Europe until the 1600s, and cooked over an open fire. French chefs hired by Charles II of England in the mid-1600s baked elaborate spice cakes coated in white icing.
The modern spice cake, a type of butter cake or layer cake, appeared in the latter part of the 19th century.
Sometimes, spice cake is combined with layers of lighter colored cakes, to produce a multi-flavored, multi-colored cake. Names for this included ribbon cake, metropolitan cake, Neapolitan cake, Prince of Wales cake, and Harlequin cake.
During times of food rationing or to keep costs down, spice cakes lent themselves toward replacing expensive ingredients, such as eggs and butter, with more economical choices, such as pureed fruit.
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