Iconic and Indulgent Dessert Cakes Starting with “I” and “J” Around the World

The traditional definition cake has been changing throughout the decades and until a certain time didn't include much beyond the Western cakes if we go by the English script, but that changed with globalisation and now even the west has different versions straying away from the traditional glutinous cake. We take a look one alphabet at a time, this time dessert cakes beginning with “I” and “J”.

1. Ice cream cake

It's an American invention that got its boost since refrigeration was invented, it uses cake sponges or loaves holding ice cream layers together. Sometimes the gluten part is absent and the entire cake is just ice cream. It can be made in any way using frosting to top the cake, or soft-serve ice creams and even whipping cream. It gained prominence in the 1800s and is said to have come from the English at a time when ice cream was a luxury food eaten among the elite. Two US Presidents and a first lady were behind the ice cream book in the US and cakes followed soon after they could be stored.

2. Jajan pasar

Indonesia has a variety of cakes being sold by street vendors and home bakers alike and Jajan pasar is said to be a traditional cake made with glutinous rice flour and coated with sesame seeds. It's an umbrella term actually that also extends to the cakes and puddings and steamed rice delicacies from the Javanese area. Sumping Waluh, Kue Mangkok, Onde Onde, Kue Klepon and Lemper are some of the most popular street sweets and some of them cakes, sold in the country and nearby regions.

3. Icebox cake

If you go by the definition of the traditional cake, like the ice cream cake, this one is also off the charts, because it is no-bake and uses wafers instead of flour batter and heavy cream, sugar, and chocolate cookies or wafers. The name is such because it's refrigerated, which used to be known as iceboxes. Other parts of the world make it too, but in the Americas they got their first taste during World War I, especially during the 1920-1930s.

4. Jamaican Rum Cake

As a Caribbean island nation, Jamaica undoubtedly uses one of the local potent drinks, in their desserts too, we are talking about rum. They bake a cake using flour, butter, salt, baking powder, dates, dried apricots, raisins, molasses, and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves and of course quite a bit of the dark rum. The dry fruits are soaked in the rum and sometimes the cake batter also uses rum in it. Attend a local celebration in Jamaica and you might just find this boozy cake among the desserts.

5. Japanese Cheesecake

The Japanese cheesecake might seem a little strange if you've been eating western cheesecakes all your life. The Japanese cheesecake is like a soufflé, and hence it's also called the soufflé cheesecake in Japan that was inspired by the German Käsekuchen. A Japanese man who was a trained chef brought it back and gave his own spin on the German classic that is a cross between the American and the German cheesecake. Unlike other cheesecakes that are best eaten chilled, the Japanese cheesecake is mostly eaten fresh off the oven. It's not as sweet as the other cheesecakes of the world and if you want sweet, you'll get apricot jam to top your Japanese cheesecake.

6. Joffre Cake

Coming from Romania’s Bucharest, Joffre cake is a rich layered chocolate cake which also uses plenty of buttermilk and was first made way back in the 1920s. The cake was made in a restaurant, which is a full fledged 5-star hotel today, called the Casa Capsa. Special dinner parties were hosted at this place and when Marshall Joffre, head of the French army, came visiting in the 1920s, the Capsa hotel brothers honoured him with a special cake made at the gala hosted exclusively for the military leader. The cake is said to resemble the French casquettes that his troops wore in World War I. One piece of this delicious cake isn't enough and this cake perpetuated the saying “one piece of Joffre is always followed by another one”.

7. Jaffa Cakes

If you know your oranges well you might be aware of the Jaffa orange because there's a cake named after them. The cake is popular in the United Kingdom and is made with the Genoise sponge cake as the base, a layer of orange jam and a chocolate coating to finish it off. You might see them as a cake masquerading as a bun sold in most bars in the UK in packets in different sizes.