For about a month, I've been taking practice cakes into work.

One of the guys there, who has traveled a lot in Europe with the Army/Navy/Marines (sorry! I don't know which he was in!) and is married to a woman from ... the Check Republic maybe?

Anyway, he often comments how his wife would LOVE the cakes because they're more like European cakes and not so "sicky-sweet like the American cakes that she hates". He has said this about cakes even when I thought the icing was too sweet, and topped with coconut-flavored MMF. He keeps insisting on it, but doesn't go into much more detail than that. This week, he was so excited, he actually took a piece home for his wife to try b/c he thought she would "just LOVE it!".

I've done a few scratch cakes, but many have been DH with the Cake Extender Recipe on this site. Some with 1/2 Shortening and 1/2 Butter Buttercream, one with MMF, some with Bettercream, most recently with the Whipped Cream Buttercream which I added cherry filling and chocolate to, topped with chocolate ganache-like icing. So I cannot narrow down anything consistent in my cakes that are so much different from others. Maybe they've only had store-bought cakes since moving back. I don't know.

Sorry this is so long. My actual question IS ... (and hopefully the several European and across-seas CC members can help me here!) what would he be talking about specifically? Are European cakes much different from American cakes and how? What is done differently? Does Europe as a whole eat fewer commercially-made cakes or is it something more?

I'm not planning on changing how I do anything, but I'm really interested in finding out what you all know about this.

Thanks!

Hi szyadgrl,

I was a bit upset reading another thread where CarolAnn has given a very good answer. A few of us are using this forum to show how bad they are by talking on trivial and boring subjects when we can talk about cakes and not talking bad about cultures (nationalities).

Aren't we united?

English is not my mother tongue and I would like to apologise first if I understand you wrong and assume that you want an explanation of what is European and what is American regarding taste, specifically cake taste. With that assumption here is what I want you to know.

European: I used to be Scandinavian until a few years ago the majority voted to enter the European Union, and since we signed the agreement we became European except that we did not enter the monetary union. Until about the fifties we did not what sphagetti or pizza was and thanks to guest workers from Italy, Turkey and Greece we learnt a lot about food culture. Today we can have any type of cake in the big cities, Chinese Moon Cakes, German Apfel Strudel, Turkish semolina cakes or Yugoslavisk Baklava, just to mention a wee bit of our food culture. Our teenagers appreciate the sweetmeats and do not attribute a political taste to them when they over consume sweetmeats. After the Rumanian and Yoguslavian wars, and thanks to the refugees, our small town consists 54% immigrants from other parts of the world including America. This has made it possible for me to get to know different cultures as I regularly take part in the actitivites in the multicultural society. What I have learnt is that we, the original Swede, take jam with meat balls and our breads are sweeter for the cultures from Eastern Europe. They are used to eating healthy food with lot of fibres and they do not add sugar like we do when baking bread. Their cakes get the taste from nuts than the pure sugar. What I am trying to say is that tastes vary from person to person, and in a multicultural society there are many different opinions of taste and there are also options to choose what you like according to your palate.

American: My perception of America has been that it is a union of different cultures and the ancestors of today's average American came from different parts of the world, though the Spanish, unfortunately, managed to wipe out some advanced cultures of the ancient world. In these united states, the cake culture is dominantly large, big, elaborate skyskrapers. Buttercream is the best, sugarpaste the next tasteless thing, and Royal Icing is known as Rock Hard. These assumptions are done by people who have never tried this medium.

There is no reason to make a big fuss about one person not wanting to taste or he has a different opinion about your cakes as long as you are not catering for him only. I would make cakes according to the customers taste if I can charge for it.

America is united as Europe is, so please don't let us talk bad about Checks or Hispanic, they are all part of the unity and should be known as Americans. We do not use checks (cheques) any more, they are replaced by the American Express.

Have fun and enjoy your decorating.

I shall post some pictures to show what the typical Swedish wedding cakes look like.

Thank you for your post. People seem to forget that is took all these cultures to make America what she is. I am so sick of hearing all the racial bias, the republicans, the democrats, the independents, why can't we first be a good AMERICAN !!!!! Just too much turmoil.

Hmmm, I don't know, but I can tell you that Europeans do almost exclusively scratch baking. Cake mixes are few and far between and are horrible here anyway. Maybe he means that your cakes taste more like scratch cakes than cake mix cakes? I am confused as to why his wife might like anything with shortening in it (the buttercreams so widely used in the US), because that isn't an ingredient we use in Europe, we mainly bake with all butter (including the buttercreams)! I'm confused myself, so not much help - sorry!

Edited to say: I hope nobody thinks that I meant that shortening buttercreams are bad (although I really dislike the taste myself, as does everyone else I know who's tried it !), I was just saying that it would not be a taste she would be used to as a European, so I have no idea why he would think it reminded her of home !

well cakes here tend to fall into 3 catogories

celebration cakes tend to be a rich heavy fruit cake covered in marzipan and either royal icing or fondant

teatime cakes, things like victoria sponge filled with raspberry jam and buttercream , small iced cupcakes, gingercake, light fruitcake

treats such as meringues, chocolate eclairs filled with fresh cream

Most of our cakes are scratch made. If we put a filling in it tends to be a very thin layer. A lot of teatime cakes don't have any filling or icing at all

Hope this helps

I have a very good friend who spends alot of time in America; he has cousins over there and he's also done a years exchange when he was at university. He has said the same about cakes in America, they are overly sweet and have a somewhat artificial taste. He has a real sweettooth, so everytime he was in the UK I'd have to bake him lots of cakes, and I even taught him to bake from scratch. The family he lived with baked, but only with cake mixes, and he could never eat the buttercream. Since he returned we have recreated buttercream with lard (the closest thing we know of to shortening) and my partner and I can't eat it either.

I wish I knew where the cake came from that these people are calling "American" and is so horrible. I can walk into the grocery store and buy an "American" cake that IS HORRIBLE! I hate grocery store cakes becuase I don't like that whipped icing. Be that is just my taste.

My friend referred to nearly every cake he had in there as American, simply because the cake itself tasted "generic" and the icing as "an attrocity to the tastebuds". He had a really nice cake at an expensive bakers once, but that was about it, he even disliked the cake the mother of the family made, again because of the cake being a mix and the icing being shortening based. I really do think it is a matter of taste though, I certainly can't slate a type of cake just because I don't like it! It has been said time and time again on these boards that American and European society does differ when it comes to food. America seems to have a market much more geared to convenience, speed and quantity compared with what I have found completely across Europe. I think here we focus more on quality rather than quantity and are much more patient and prepared to wait for that quality. We are also brought up more on home baking and cooking, and the majority of people I know will only buy fast food as a last resort when there is no other way of getting fed; personally I can't stand McDonalds and places like that.

Please don't think that I am slating anyone, and I am aware that I am making generalisations, and ofcourse I know that there are lots of people in the US that bake and cook from home all of the time!

I can't really tell you what 'European' baking is like but I would assume that is probably similiar to here in New Zealand as alot of early settlers came from europe.

Most people here bake from scratch, thats 'most' not all. We do have cake mixes - probably 10 variants in all, and Betty Crocker has only been on the market here for a little over a year i think. The mixes are certainly not cheap - $3.69 NZD per box so alot of people don't feel there is any advantage to using them.

Alot of women I know still bake every week to 'fill the tins' for their children and partners to take to school and work. This kind of baking is slices/muffins/cupcakes all from scratch. The buttercream we use is all butter (although I use a recipe with half shortening) as we don't have 'Crisco' available here.

Celebration/Wedding cakes tend to be chocolate mud or fruit and are usually covered with 'fondant'

Hope this helps

Wow.
I certainly had no idea that my post would offend or put off anyone at all. I had no intent to do that in any way, shape or form! I'm not bashing any one from anywhere or any cakes from anywhere. That's just exactly what he said that his wife has said. And come on, we're talking about CAKE, not politics or religion or the make-up of any country, America or otherwise! It's CAKE and a couple of people's perception and comments on the flavor of CAKE, which lead me to wonder, because he's so insistant about it, is there a specific difference in the taste of CAKE from one area of the world to the next. Because I like to learn these things.

(I knew I was being too general in stating "European" cake, but that's what he said and they traveled a lot, so I had to cover a lot of ground with as few words as possible. And the differences in taste from country to country are very different as well).

I thank you all for your input and history lessons too! I think I may call it a day and go with the "tastes more like homemade or home-baked" suggestion. Maybe she had ONE single piece of "American" cake that she didn't like and never bothered to try anymore. Maybe it tastes like cake her mom made. Maybe it reminds her of cake from a local bakery where she lived when she was little... I work with the husband, so trying to play "telephone" to get specifics may be a little strange.

Like I said, I'm not trying to change anything I'm doing, or try to bake to a specific flavor other than what I myself think is good. I've been experimenting with flavors and doctored mixes vs. scratch and all sorts of fillings. All 15 of my other "taste-testers" say they love the cakes too (still not sure if they say that just because I'm bringing in free cake though ).

I guess I was hoping there was a specific difference in the CAKES, along the lines of what recently happened to my dad on a business trip to China.... because it's customary to bring gifts, he took some chocolate fudge that my mom had made. His Chinese co-workers/hosts accepted the fudge and didn't say anything else about it. Later in the week, curious, dad asked them how they liked it. His hosts nicely told him that it wasn't in their taste, it was MUCH MUCH too sweet and reminded them of eating a sugar cube... because Chinese sweets are traditionally not nearly as suggary as American sweets.

Soooo anyway ... thanks and I appreciate your insight and help. I've learned a lot from these posts. It's interesting to me to learn about taste and preference differences from country to country. I hate talking politics and all the heavy junk that goes with it most of the time - but CAKE! I could discuss and debate and learn about all day! (Thankfully there is CC)

Saying it's different or asking a question isn't bashing or anything, it's just asking a question.
I don't remember eating any cake in Germany that wasn't made by my mom and was "american" but lots of foods there were very different.
I was in 1st and 2nd grade while my dad was stationed there and I still remember some of the wonderful foods there. My parents did alot of shopping off post. It's been almost 20 years since we left and I still prefer European chocolate and would kill for a kinder egg. The cookies were not as sweet, I remember those, and they were great.

Okay, I've just glanced over the massive responses people have been making in regards to the post. I think the original post was NOT offensive in ANY way.

I am Irish-Italian-Canadian (My moms from Ireland and my dad from Italy) and come from a large family of professional bakers. And trust me, things are done much differently here in "America" than in parts of Europe.

The Italian cakes are not sweet; I find them to be quite strong tasting, especially the 'rum' cakes. Even the Italian cookies are not sweet; they're really dry, meant for dunking (ie. biscotti). There are some 'sweeter' cookies; by sweeter, i mean sprinkled with icing sugar, and cream and custard filled horns.

We live in a large Italian community and cater to the 'old country' taste as well as the "americanized" version. My nona does not like the cakes here and prefers the ones she's used to (Italian cakes), and I do not like Italian cakes, (but i do prefer their cookies and pastries).

I'm 'assuming' that this is what you're talking about when she says the cakes produced here are 'sickly sweet', because people in my family find that too. It's all about catering to people's tastes, and a lot of the time, it's because of different ethnic backgrounds.

My nana (Irish- UK) prefers her cakes to be fruit cakes. Very heavy, very dense, but extremely flavourful.

MY POINT IS: People have different tastes stemming from different cultures. As bakers/decorators, we are to 'cater to the customer'. czyadgrl, I applaud you for inquiring about this because now those who have read this post are more educated in the sense that there is more to cakes than just the kinds we're used to.

good on ya!

It is all a matter of taste and what you grew up eating. Personally, I prefer scratch because mixes tend to be flavorless and....blah! However, I have tried some highly tauted recipes here that were equally blah. So it isn't just scratch vs. homemade; it is a matter of what you grew up eating. Concerning European desserts, they were by in large disappointing. They looked wonderful, but the taste...well, no thank you.
They either weren't sweet enough or they were too sweet. It is all a matter of taste.

Normally, when I am making frosting I will use all butter for buttercream. However, for decorating the melting point of butter is too low, so you have to use hydrogenated shorting (Crisco or the like) if you want to make roses or borders. There are some recipes that are better than others, but they are all "decorator's frosting" which many people in the US just scrape off.

OK- using lard to make decorator's frosting....!!! GACK, I can't imagine what that would taste like.

$3.69 NZD for cake mix converts to $2.61 USD. That is a bit pricey since I could buy a mix and can of frosting for that price. Cake mixes can be had for $.88 to $1.29 USD or $1.25 to $1.83 NZD.

Royal Icing as it is made in the US dries to cement and stores very well. Which is perfect if you need several hundred flowers for a wedding cake. You can make them ahead of time and use them as needed or purchase them on line if you don't have the time to make them yourself. Same with gum-paste decorations. They are not meant to be eaten. I have tiny little royal icing doves from my mother's wedding cake, and she was married in 1940. They are a bit brown but intact.

Concerning American interest in what cakes are like else where in the world, it is curiosity not criticism. The US is a huge country, something the Europeans I met in Europe don't really "get." Even as much as Americans do travel, the vast majority never travel outside of the US or perhaps at most to Canada or Mexico. However, we are a multi-cultural, multi-racial country, and we are usually curious about anything new or different. And we absorb things into our culture very quickly, particularly food. Pizza, burritos, lattes, jerk chicken, gyros, salsa, brats, pita bread just to name a few that have become mainstream American in the last 30 years.

A small (maybe trivial) aside here: it's Czech Republic, not Check Republic.

I've always wondered about the royal icing used on cakes in the UK. Is it the same as the royal icing here in the states? Does it get hard and crunchy on the cake like ours would? Does the cake make it soft... or you you just eat it crunchy? I've seen this in a lot of books and always been curious!

I love all cakes, regardless of where they are baked..
I'm from Philippines and I love Filipino made cakes. Now that I've lived in America for about 20+ years, I love American cakes. When I go to Europe next year for my vacation, I will be more than happy to eat European cakes.. Even if I go to Mars, I would eat Martian cakes...

Cakes, cakes, cakes, there is never enough cakes.. I love them all.
That's why I'm here at Cake Central..

I really dont understand what the problem is here, but going back to the original question, my spouse is Czech and we live in a predominently Czech town. Yes, the Czech recipes are not as sweet as the traditional cakes that we have here in the USA. For example, a true Czech kolache has more of what Americans would consider to be a hamburger bun like taste... very little sugar in the batter.

Hmm I didn't find anything offensive about the original posters post either.... perhaps the responder didn't understand correctly? She said English wasn't her first language....

Anyway - I've thought that European cakes (from the books I've gotten there) are a bit drier and denser. American cakes are lighter and moister - usually b/c a lot come from a cake mix. I also have found in books that Europeans use a lot of fruit cakes and marzipan and royal icing. I don't know how fruit cakes would go over here in the U.S. - especially since they are thought of as "dreaded fruitcake" during the holidays..... but they are better for decorating b/c they taste better as they age.... I believe they usually have a "healthy" amount of alcohol in them that preserves them - that's why they can wait a week for the royal icing to completely dry - I had one book that described decorating a cake and it took about 3 weeks to do b/c of drying time! But it was a fruitcake covered w/ marzipan and then the royal - so I guess it would turn out okay....

I think the European cakes also have less variety of flavors - they stick w/ the basics - lemon, vanilla, pound, -etc. whereas Americans stick a whole heck of a lot of flavors together - cake flavor, filling flavor, icing a different flavor - it's a whole bunch of stuff together. I think the European pallet may be more more used to "traditional" flavors... and I don't think they like sweets very sweet..... but of course I've never been to Europe so I could be mistaken - this is just what I've gleaned from books.

However - I think the Italians win the market on ice cream - I LOVE gelato and think it's the absolute best stuff!

As far as Asians - I stayed with my uncle and aunt in Taiwan for a week and was AMAZED at how few flavors and types there were of candy - of course I thought some of the snacks were weird - like seaweed stuff and eating dried fish as a snack..... not for me.... but when we went into a candy shop they basically had a little bit of chocolate and a whole bunch of sugar candies - the same kind of sugar candies - just stamped with different images or in different shapes - but that was it - we have such a wide variety! Twizzlers, Dove, Hershey's, Milky Ways, Snickers, Kit-Kats, gummy worms & bears, etc. - maybe we should decrease our variety to help w/ the obesity epidemic If all of our candy and stuff was pretty bland tasting -we'd eat less of it and be healthier! (I'm not talking about cake here - b/c people don't usually eat cake on a daily basis - but they will eat candy on a daily basis).

I have friends from all over the world (melting pot of an apartment building, ya know?), and frowm what I can tell, European and Mid Eastern people like their cakes heavier and denser. I forgot who it was, but there is a CC member here who does fruit cakes and decorates them lavishly (gorgeous things!). They are dense, but moist. Not too sweet.

My fruit cakes ( AKA Chrismas cake) is pretty dense, full of flavour and will probably get you drunk! When I ice a fruit cake it has an apricot glaze, a layer of marzipan and then a layer of royal icing. The royal icing doesn't set rock hard, as the marzipan is there to keep the underneath moist, you do get a firm surface on the outside though.

Maybe the denser cake thing comes from the traditional English tea drinking, a nice pice of cake with tea . Off to make cake and tea now.....

As soon as I noticed this post I just had to read it.....

My parents were both born in Europe but moved here when they were young. My husband is also from Europe (Novi Sad, The former Yugoslavia) so I know a bit about cakes from there and they are absolutely wonderful!

I have many recipes for tortes, and cakes and other desserts and some of them are fantastic. Of course I need a lot more practice in making some of them but people like my grandma can whip up delicious treats in no time. As someone mentioned there are a lot of tortes but if you make them correctly and when they are filled and covered in buttercream (without shortening - usually a pudding or custard with butter beaten into it or just a raw egg yolk/sugar mixture with butter beaten into it.) they are fantastic. Many of the cakes we make are not dry and a lot of desserts include either ground or chopped nuts as well.

Here, we do use a lot of cake mix (myself included) but the texture is definately different. Both kinds are really tastey but the European scratch cakes are definately worth the effort when you get used to making them.

One thing I have to admit though...our cheesecakes (made with Philly cream cheese) are better!!! My brother in law makes cheesecake over there but its just not the same!!

imartsy - I have to agree with you on the gelato!! that stuff is great (although I ate it in Australia not Italy)

thanks cmcgarr!

And I LOVE your avatar. Should have thought of that myself!

And continued thanks to sharing your knowledge, impressions and taste preferences!

Thanks too kaste28, I swore that it looked incorrect but Googled it twice and kept coming up with sites that spelled it that way.

This is only feuling my desire to travel overseas! One school trip to Paris 10 years ago is not enough, I want to see more (ahem, eat more cakes!). DH needs to go, he's never been out of the US or Canada.

I have yet to find any pain au chocolat around here that's like what I had in France. A 10-year craving has got to stop sometime! LOL

isakov1 - I wouldn't dream of making cheesecake with anything but Philly cheese

Hi I just read all of this thread, and thought I would add my thoughts.
I grew up in England, so have a good idea of what cakes we had there. Mainly dense cake I love fruit cake and wanted it for a wedding cake but my husband who is american said no one like fruit cake and no. I also love victoria sponges my aunt used to make the best.
I have spent the last 7 years in Australia which I loved. I am now a citzen so can go back if I feel the need. The cakes in OZ mainly used for wedding cakes are chocolate mud cake or layered cakes with various fillings. this is my experience from cutting them at thehotel I worked at. ALso chocolate ganache is a popular covering. Buttercream cakes are not that popular at all.
So now I am in the States trying to work out what cakes people like or don't. My in laws have been taking me out to try cakes etc. Some of there best rated cakes from the local bakers I find too sweet. All the sponge seems to be mix which is not something I am used to. Also what makes it really hard for me being that I would like to start selling cakes. Is that the cake that is very sweet with buttercream is what people want. but I think it tastes pretty average. So how do you make something that is good that the people like when the client only want really sweet stuff??
I am not saying all American cake is bad at all just I find a lot of it too sweet.

debsuewoo - the decorator here on CC that uses fruitcake is emmascakes - and her cakes are amazing!!!!

As far as the difference between American and European cakes - I don't know but I would love to find out - by going to Europe and eating lots of cake!!!


But first I would have to get over my fear of flying over open water.

I also think that the original poster question has been misinterpreted by the first person that responded to it.

However, as a native from Spain (also part of EU since 1986), I would say that our cakes are not as sweet as the American cakes. We always flavor them with moistening syrup since the base is sponge cake which is usually drier. We don't use buttercream but whipped ganache or whipped cream for icing them, pastry cream for the filling most of the time. I agree with what other people have said about this topic: It all depends on what one has grown accustomed to.

Well, and about this, I would like to say that I don't feel this has much to do with cakes. I'm not denying history, of course, but it makes me feel bad because there is nothing I can do about the past. I treat peope like I want to be treated: respect, tolerance and love and I want to concentrate on the present and the future because I can do something about it.

But remember, let's just focus on cakes.... Is there something better in life?

Inma

In England the majority of celebration cakes are fruit cake (although this is starting to change slightly now with most people oting for at least 1 tier to be made in sponge).
The cakes are covered in marzipan the iced in several thin layers of royal icing. This gives us a smooth flawless finish on which to pipe. We do add glycerine to the royal icing )1 teaspoon to every 1lb of sugar). This stops it setting quite so hard and enables it to be cut smoothly.

The posts above are also right in that the cake does contain large amounts of alcohol which not only allows teh cake to be preserved but actually helps mature the cake. I try to make mine at least 6 months before they're needed to allow the maturity to develop.

This also gives us an advantage in that we can start icing and decorating the cakes several weeks before they're needed, allowing us to pipe the most intricate and elaborate designs.

It also means we can have the cake finished well before the wedding we means on the big day we're not rushing around like crazy all we have to do is to stroll into the reception hall and set the cake up on it's stand