cake 1 S2 W3 / keɪk / 名词

1 [可数和不可数名词] a soft sweet food made by baking a mixture of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs :

We had cake and ice cream.

a chocolate cake

2 fish/rice/potato etc cake fish, rice etc that has been formed into a flat round shape and then cooked

3 [可数名词] a small block of something

cake of

a cake of soap

4 be a piece of cake spoken to be very easy :

‘How do you do that?’ ‘It’s a piece of cake! Watch!’

5 take the cake ( also take the biscuit British English ) informal to be worse than anything else you can imagine :

I’ve heard some pretty dumb ideas, but that takes the cake!

6 have your cake and eat it British English , have your cake and eat it too American English spoken to have all the advantages of something without its disadvantages

7 a slice of the cake British English a share of the profit, help etc that is available :

Both companies expect to get a big slice of the cake.

→ sell like hot cakes at hot cake ( 1 )

COLLOCATIONS

动词

make/bake a cake Let’s make a cake for his birthday.

decorate a cake We decorated the cake with strawberries and cream.

ice a cake British English , frost a cake American English (= cover a cake with fine sugar mixed with a liquid ) She iced her own wedding cake.

短语

a piece/slice of cake Would you like a slice of cake?

a cake recipe Do you have any good cake recipes?

a cake tin British English , a cake pan American English (= that you bake a cake in ) Use a 20 cm cake tin.

a cake shop There’s a very good cake shop in the market.

cake mix (= a mixture that you buy in a packet and use for making a cake ) If I’m feeling lazy, I sometimes use a cake mix.

types of cake

a birthday/Christmas/wedding cake (= a special cake for a birthday etc ) Lucy had twelve candles on her birthday cake.

a home-made cake Home-made cakes are much nicer than bought ones.

a fruit cake (= one with dried fruit in it ) Fruit cakes keep for quite a long time.

a sponge cake (= one made from flour, butter, sugar, and eggs ) It’s best to eat sponge cakes on the day you make them.

a chocolate/lemon etc cake (= a sponge cake with a chocolate etc flavour ) She’d baked a chocolate cake for me.

a cream cake (= one with thick cream inside it ) I’ll get fat if I eat any more cream cakes.

COMMON ERRORS

► Do not say ’ cook a cake ‘. Say make a cake or bake a cake .