111 articles
Chocolate cake
Chocolate cake, or torta al cioccolato-style layer cakes, is a cake flavored with cocoa powder or chocolate. Early 19th-century American versions were yellow cake with chocolate frosting; the 1828 cocoa press and 1902 recipe pamphlets popularized chocolate-flavored cakes.
Chocolate chip cookie
Chocolate chip cookie, or Toll House cookie: American drop cookie with chocolate pieces, invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield at the Toll House Inn, Whitman, Massachusetts, late 1930s; recipe published 1938, licensed to Nestlé in 1939, chips marketed from 1940.
Churro
Churro: a deep-fried stick of scalded wheat-flour dough (flour, water, salt) extruded through a star tip, a Spanish and Latin American breakfast pastry; related to porras, distinct from doughnuts, with disputed origins and a growing global market.
Cinnamon roll
Cinnamon roll, also cinnamon bun or Swedish kanelbulle: a spiral of enriched yeast dough filled with cinnamon sugar. Swedish version has cardamom and pearl sugar; American version is sweeter with cream cheese frosting; Kanelbullens dag is October 4.
Clafoutis
Clafoutis, a baked French dessert from Limousin made of cherries in a flan-like egg, milk, sugar, and flour batter; also called clafouti in English. Word coined in the 19th century from clafir, 'to fill'; other fruits make a flaugnarde.
Cobbler (food)
Cobbler is an American deep-dish fruit dessert baked under biscuit, batter, dumpling, or (in the South) sometimes a bottom-and-top pastry crust, first recorded in 1859, distinct from crisps and crumbles.
Colin the Caterpillar
Colin the Caterpillar is M&S's chocolate celebration cake, sold since 1990 and made by Park Cakes in Oldham; over 15 million sold, known for the M&S v Aldi Cuthbert trademark dispute, Connie the Caterpillar, and Arctic Colin.
Cookie
Cookie (Dutch koekje; UK biscuit): small sweet low-moisture, high-fat, high-sugar baked good; texture set by spread, gluten setting, and Maillard browning; $140bn global market.
Crêpe
Crêpe: very thin unleavened French pancake of wheat batter (sweet crêpe) or buckwatter galette, from 13th-century Brittany; national dish of France, crêperie culture, Chandeleur, Gavottes, bilig and rozell.
Croissant
Croissant: crescent-shaped laminated yeast pastry, French descendant of the Austrian kipferl brought to Paris by August Zang (1839); laminated butter dough recipe from 1915; flaky crust, honeycombed crumb.
Cronut
Cronut: trademarked croissant-doughnut hybrid pastry created by Dominique Ansel, launched May 10, 2013 at his SoHo New York bakery; TIME Best Invention 2013, sold only at his bakeries with monthly rotating flavors.
Cruller
Cruller: a deep-fried doughnut-family pastry, from Dutch krullen "to curl" (American English, 1805). Two forms exist: twisted yeasted Dutch/German crullers and the ridged French cruller of piped choux pastry; youtiao is the Chinese salted namesake.
Cupcake
Cupcake: a small individual cake baked in a muffin tin, named for the early 19th-century "cup cake" measured by the cup; first printed by Eliza Leslie in 1828; gourmet boom from Magnolia Bakery, 1996.
Danish pastry
Danish pastry, called wienerbrød ("Viennese bread") in Denmark, is a sweet yeasted laminated pastry enriched with eggs and sugar, layered at roughly 24–54 fat folds, distinct from croissant and puff pastry, with Danish origins in 1840s Copenhagen.
Dorayaki (どら焼き)
Dorayaki (どら焼き, 銅鑼焼き), also called Mikasa in Kansai, is a Japanese wagashi of two castella-like griddle-baked pancakes sandwiching azuki anko; named for its gong-like shape, modernized in Meiji-era Tokyo.
Doughnut
Doughnut (donut): a deep-fried ring, ball, or filled sweet dough, leavened with yeast or baking powder. Dutch oliekoecken roots in America; first recorded 1809 by Washington Irving; global market about USD 11.62 billion in 2025.
Egg tart (蛋挞)
Egg tart (蛋挞, daan tat; Portuguese-style pou tat) is a small custard-filled tart. Hong Kong style has smooth custard with lard puff or butter cookie crust; Macau's 1989 Andrew Stow adaptation of pastel de nata has caramelized spots and puff pastry.
Entremet
Entremet (plural entremets): French term for a sweet course served after cheese, and in modern patisserie a layered mousse-based composed cake, frozen and mirror-glazed; historically a medieval between-courses spectacle, now central to 2026 texture and mini-portion trends.
Fortune cookie
Fortune cookie: a crisp folded wafer with a paper fortune, served in Chinese-American restaurants. Also called tsujiura senbei in Japan. Japanese origin, American invention, rare in China; WWII internment shifted production to Chinese-American makers.
Fruitcake
Fruitcake, also called Christmas cake or plum cake, is a dense cake of dried and candied fruit, nuts, and spices, often preserved with brandy or rum. Known for Roman origins, extreme shelf stability, and holiday and wedding traditions.
Galette
Galette: French term for flat round or freeform cakes; most notably the savory Breton buckwheat pancake (galette complète, galette saucisse) and the rustic pan-free pastry tart, plus the Epiphany galette des Rois.
Genoise
Genoise (génoise), a Genoa-named French sponge cake: whole eggs and sugar warmed and whipped to the ribbon stage, flour and melted butter folded in, no chemical leavening; sturdy base for tortes, bûche de Noël, and syrup-soaked layer cakes.
German chocolate cake
German chocolate cake is an American layered chocolate cake with coconut-pecan frosting, named after Samuel German, creator of Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate in 1852; the 1957 Dallas recipe popularized it.
Gingerbread
Gingerbread: spiced baked goods from crisp cookies to cakes and decorated Christmas houses. From Old French gingembrat (preserved ginger); earliest English recipes had no ginger, using honey, breadcrumbs, saffron, and pepper.
Gingerbread man
Gingerbread man: a human-shaped spiced Christmas cookie, also called Lebkuchenmann in Germany. Word from Old French gingembrat (preserved ginger); shape attributed to Elizabeth I; runaway tale published 1875 in St. Nicholas Magazine.
Gooey butter cake
Gooey butter cake, also called ooey gooey butter cake, is a St. Louis, Missouri specialty: a flat, dense cake with a yeasted or cake-mix base and a buttery, underbaked, pudding-like topping, born by legend from a 1930s German baker's mistake.
Gulab jamun (गुलाब जामुन)
Gulab jamun (गुलाब जामुन), also luqmat al-qadi, is a South Asian khoya-based sweet of deep-fried milk-solid balls soaked in rose or cardamom syrup, popular across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
Ice cream sandwich
An ice cream sandwich is a frozen dessert of ice cream between two baked goods, usually thin chocolate wafers, born as late 19th century New York street food.
Icing (food)
Icing (also called frosting, especially in the US) is a sugar-based coating for cakes and cookies. Basic icing is confectioners' sugar plus liquid; frosting is thicker and whipped, icing thinner and glossier; royal icing dries hard for decorating.
Jalebi
Jalebi (जलेबी), also jilebi or jilipi, is a South Asian sweet of fermented maida batter piped into spirals, deep-fried, and soaked in sugar syrup; descended from West Asian zalabiya, with imarti (jangiri) as its urad dal relative.