[Sca-cooks] Cake definition was a digest

[Johnna Holloway]

The Middle English Dictionary has been on the internet for a number of  
years.
It's a University of Michigan project.

The charcaters will come through jumbled but the entry begins:
cake (c /a with a bar/ over it ke) (n.) Also cayk, kake.

[ON; cp. Norw. & Swed. kaka, Dam. kage. Akin to ME kchel little cake &  
OHG kuocho cake.]

1.

(a) A flat cake or loaf; also, an unbaked cake or loaf; haver (ote,  
oten) ~, a cake of oaten bread; therf ~, a cake of unleavened bread;  
barli ~, flouren ~, spiced ~; (b) bread of the Eucharist; also fig.;  
(c) in proverbs and idioms: as plat a ~, as flat as a cake; bolned as  
an oven ~, puffed up like a loaf in the oven; croked ~, misshapen  
loaf; nought a ~, not worth a lump of bread; (d) ~ bred, ?griddlecake.

(a)    c1225 Wor.Bod.Gloss.(Hat 115)   24:  Focan: kake.

c1225(?c1200) HMaid.(Bod 34)   34/559:  Þet wif..ihereð..hire cake  
bearnen o þe stan, & hire kelf suken.

a1325 Gloss.Bibbesw.(Cmb Gg.1.1)   462:  Kakenole [vrr. brachole,  
brakole, ?brakenole]: a cake of spices [vrr. a spiced kake, a kake  
wyth spices].
So cake is much older.
You may use the MED here:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/
Johnnae

On Nov 20, 2010, at 6:08 AM, Claire Clarke wrote:
>> When did the word 'cake' come into being?  What did it mean? off  
>> the top of
>> my head, a fruit packed baked good, yes?
>> Lady Bonne
>
> The earliest use I've seen the word 'cake' is in the late 16th  
> century for
> things that reading the recipe made me go 'that's shortbread'. I  
> have a
> recipe for a 17th century Italian fruit cake that is beginning to  
> resemble
> something like cake. This is where I've always placed the beginnings  
> of true
> cake in my mind.
>
> Angharad