Let’s Circle the Globe with These Simple Cake Recipes Starting with C

Each country has one or more signature cakes in their culinary offerings, whether filled with buttercream, cut into slices or made with puff pastry and soaked in sugar syrup. Each of these cakes has a big range that goes up from highly indulgent to downright humble made with simple ingredients and great to dig into with tea or coffee. Here’s a roundup of some of the cakes that start with the alphabet C.

1. Castella

While it’s authentically Japanese, the castella cake was introduced to Japan by Portuguese missionaries and adopted by the country’s Nagasaki prefecture. Castella is a sponge cake which due to their longer shelf life used to be carried across the lands by the Portuguese sailors at sea. It comes from the Castille region of Spain, and hence the name, the Japanese pronounce it as “Kasutera”. Despite being at least 400 years since the Portuguese introduced this cake it's still made in wooden frames without a top and bottom, using flour, sugar and eggs, for that wrinkle-free crust.

2. Cheesecake

Like cakes is a big group that encompasses a certain kind of dessert, cheesecake is also such a group, but a much smaller one. There’s the New York-style cheesecake with a sturdy crust while most of the other cheesecakes in other parts going crustless and using their local cheese like curd cheese, quark and cream cheese to bake the cheesecake. For almost all of them, it is baked in a water bath and might or might not have any nuts, fruits or coulis topped with them.

3. Chenna Poda

Did you know cakes were being made in cast iron pans long before ovens were in vogue or invented? Because Odisha’s chenna poda is one special sweet similar to the international cheesecake variant. It is made with chenna (obtained from curdled milk), rice flour, sugar, and cardamom with sometimes dried nuts and fruits added. It's cooking over a flame on a baking pan until the sugar caramelises, turning the crust a deep golden brown. It is sliced and then eaten, and mostly sold in sweetmeat shops.

4. Cremeschnitte

A delicious vanilla-flavored custard cake that is popular throughout central and eastern Europe, Cremeschnitte is also called Krempita, Napoleonka and many other names based on where you try it. The German name Cremeschnitte translates to cream slice and is said to be a fusion of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Polish name Napoleonka, suggests it’s derived from the French Mille-feuille or Napoleon, and like the French pastry, it has delicate puff pastry layers, two in fact, trapped between the creamy custard layers.

5. Cassata

Perhaps the most famous dessert to come from the island of Sicily, Cassata is a layered cake made of genoise sponge cake, drenched in local liquor, with sweet ricotta and fruit preserves resting on top of it. This whole thing goes into a marzipan layer and is decorated with candied fruits. Like some of the famous Italian desserts, this one is tinged with a little Arabian influence. Because the name is derived from the Arabic word “qas’ah” referring to the bowl used to make the Cassata. This cake is served chilled and you will find it being eaten during Easter and also spring and wintertime.

6. Ciambella

Another one from Italy, the Ciambella cake is a ring cake that is baked in a bundt-like pan with a hollow centre, minus the grooves. It's commonly prepared during Easter and Christmas and uses fruity liquor and lemon zest to flavor the cake. The cake’s batter is dough-like which is shaped into a braided pattern and then into a ring. It's a basic cake made with the basic ingredients and is light and airy with regional variations. The cake has a rustic appeal to it and tastes great after heavy meals or during tea time.

7. Chien chang go

Translating to a thousand-layer cake, Chein Chang Go is a dim sum cake dessert. The cake layers are made from a sweetened eggy dough with plenty of condensed milk. The cake is baked or steamed and you can make out the individual layers of the cake once it's done. It's traditionally chilled and then sliced into smaller pieces before being served. Because of the hard work that goes into the making of the cake, the cake is quite expensive.