The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving and cake fun facts. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Cake Fun Facts.

Cake Fun Facts: Modern cake, especially layer cakes, normally contain a combination of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter or oil, with some varieties also requiring liquid (typically milk or water) and leavening agents (such as yeast or baking powder). Flavorful ingredients like fruit purees, nuts, dried or candied fruit, or extracts are often added, and numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients are possible. Cakes are often filled with fruit preserves or dessert sauces (like pastry cream), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders or candied fruit.

  • In Roman times, eggs and butter were often added to basic bread to give a consistency that we would recognize as cake-like, and honey was used as a sweetener. The distinction between Roman concepts of cake and bread was therefore very blurred.
  • January 27th is National Chocolate Cake Day.
  • March 29th is National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day.
  • April 7th is National Coffee Cake Day.
  • May 19th is National Devil’s Food Cake Day.
  • June 11th is National German Chocolate Cake Day.
  • November 26th is National Cake Day.
  • The proverb ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’ first appeared in the early 16th century. The proverb ‘a piece of cake’ was not coined until the 20th century.
  • The word ‘cake’ comes from Middle English kake, and is probably a borrowing from Old Norse.
  • The meaning of ‘cake’ has changed over time, and the first cake was: A comparatively small flattened sort of bread, round, oval, or otherwise regularly shaped, and usually baked hard on both sides by being turned during the process.
  • In Scotland, and parts of Wales and northern England, cake took on the specific meaning of ‘a thick, hard biscuit made from oatmeal’.
  • The world’s largest wedding cake weighed 15,032 lb and was made by chefs at the Mohegan Sun Hotel and Casino, Uncasville, CT in February 2004.
  • The world’s tallest cake stood 108 feet, 3 inches high. Students and staff members at the Hakasima-Nilasari Culinary School in Jakarta, Indonesia baked it for their annual Christmas celebration.
  • The world’s most expensive cake, christened the “Pirates Fantasy,” cost a whopping $35 million. Crafted by Chef D.K., Group Skills Development Chef at Aitken Spence Hotels. It was adorned with ten different stones belonging to the sapphire family with the most expensive and the rarest one being a “Padmaraja” or the ‘King Sapphire.” It also included ten pieces of jewelry ranging from necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches pendants, tie pins, cuff links to nose rings and toe rings.
  • More than 29% of U.S. school districts have banned bake sales due to anti-obesity regulations.
  • The saying “You can’t have you cake and eat it”(originally “eat your cake and have it”) is first seen in print in 1562 in John Heywood’s ‘Proverbs and Epigrams.’
  • The first birthday cake was originally a cake given as an offering on a person’s birthday. The first reference to ‘birthday cake’ came in 1785.
  • During the 17th century, in England, people believed that keeping fruitcakes under the pillow of those who are unmarried will give them sweet dreams about their fiancee.

Try out this tasty cake recipe from The Sugar Cube food cart in Portland Oregon.

Cake Fun Facts We Missed

Let us know if we may have missed any cake fun facts in the comment section below. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia: Fun Facts about Cake.