Cake in Tagalog

From birthday parties to weddings, keyk or cake in Tagalog has been making gatherings special.

Several Filipino words do not have a direct translation in English. Given this, the translation of the word cake in Tagalog can be tricky.  In order to fully translate the word, you need a context for it. 

In this article, we will talk about cake in Tagalog, the different Filipino terms that refer to cake, and how the word can be used in sentences. We will also be answering frequently asked questions about cake in Tagalog. 

Cake in Tagalog: What Is Cake in Tagalog?

There is no official word for “cake” in Tagalog. This is most likely because cake was never a local Filipino cuisine. 

However, just like a lot of borrowed words, Filipinos created the Tagalized term, “keyk” instead. 

The following are the most closely related Tagalog words to cake: 

Bibingka

A baked Filipino cake made with rice flour. Bibingka also includes coconut milk and egg. Often served with butter and shredded coconut as a topping, bibingka gets wrapped in a banana leaf.

Mamon

A type of soft Filipino sponge cake. Due to its popularity, mamon comes in many flavors. Flavorings such as Ube Emulco and Chocolate Emulco can be used to achieve natural mamon flavors.

Mamon also often gets served with grated cheddar cheese as a topping. 

Puto

A type of sweet Filipino rice cake. Puto with cheese as a topping is a highly popular snack and dessert in the Philippines. It often gets paired with dinuguan or pork blood stew.

Kakanin

A group of glutinous rice cakes. Kakanin often gets served as a dessert. However, it can be eaten as a snack as well. 

Pan de Krema

A type of cake with a bread base and icing. Pan means bread, while krema means cream. Spaniards, who conquered the Philippines centuries ago, highly influenced Filipinos to use this term.

However, the Philippines does have its own set of baked goods along with its own official names. Some examples are:

Pandesal

Dinner roll with bread crumbs. Ube cheese pandesal has been so popular in the Philippines for three years now. Interestingly, every bakery in the Philippines sells pandesal. The bread best gets consumed in the morning, along with coffee or homemade hot chocolate.  

Pan de Coco

A round dinner roll-like with desiccated coconut filling. This is usually consumed as a snack in the afternoon. Almost every bakery in the Philippines sells pan de coco.

Ensaymada

A round coiled bread topped with margarine and sugar. Ensaymada can also be topped with cheese. Nowadays, several bakeries and bakeshop food chains sell ensaymada. 

Bibingka should be the closest thing to a cake in the Tagalog language. However, it’s only specific to rice cake which uses rice batter.

Cake in Tagalog: Keyk

In Tagalog, the English word cake directly translates as keyk. 

In English, cake refers to bread-like food made from dough or batter. It’s also usually baked in circular baking pans.

There are a couple of words that could also translate to the word cake. However, the use of these words highly depends on the context of the sentence.

Cake in Tagalog: Bibingka

Like other rice cakes in Filipino culture, this kakanin (or rice cake) is one of the most popular desserts in the Philippines.

Traditionally, Bibingka is made on the streets of the Philippines using terracotta pots lined with banana leaves. It is then cooked over charcoal.

Cooks use an outdoor, ingenious type of oven to bake bibingka. The said kitchen tool and equipment gets made out of clay and metal sheet. 

This special oven for baking is then heated at the top and bottom with live charcoal. 

Bibingka is a soft and sweet type of rice cake. It’s also perfectly paired with a salty duck egg and cheese topping. Predominantly sold on the streets to celebrate the Christmas season, bibingka, just like puto bumbong, usually gets sold after simbang gabi or Christmas night mass.

In other regions like Cebu, bibingka has a tangy and yeasty flavor. This flavor gets derived from tuba or palm wine.

This recipe gives a slight modern kick of flavor to the traditional recipe of bibingka. Additionally, this recipe uses rice flour to save time without losing the delicious flavor.

Plenty of sugar and melted butter can also be added to bibingka. This gives a sweet and fattier flavor to the bibingka. Added salty toppings like cheddar cheese or salted duck egg also go really well with bibingka.

Bibingka can also be used to refer to the oven-baked yellowish fluffy pancake. However, the batter is still made with galapong or ground glutinous rice. Cooks also add other ingredients such as coconut milk, egg, and white sugar. 

Special versions of bibingka have slices of salted duck egg, white cheese, or carabao’s milk cheese. Some even have ham as a topping.

Cake in Tagalog: Mamon

Mamon is a Filipino sponge cake that’s also a popular afternoon snack in the Philippines. This cupcake size snack can be purchased from local bakeries or bakeshop chains. 

Filipinos tend to be fond of these soft mini cakes. 

A good mamon features a soft, fluffy, and light texture. It also typically gets lightly brushed with butter on top. Sometimes, people sprinkle cheese on the top.

Other than being a popular sponge cake in the Philippines, mamon is also considered to be among the top pastries in the country. 

Unlike other types of sponge cakes, mamon is normally individually packaged. Its serving sizes are also usually good for just one person. 

Since mamon is a soft cake, it’s great for anyone with a sweet tooth. Bakeries or even in fast-food chains specializing in Filipino cuisine typically have this in their menu.

With Filipino’s affinity to anything sweet and mamon being on the sweet side, it’s no doubt that Filipinos love to consume it as a snack during midday or mid-afternoon.

Mamon isn’t only popular as a snack, but can also be served for breakfast. Its special distinctive shape came from a  special molder used to bake it.

Mamon’s characteristic as a bit sweeter and buttery is the thing that differentiates it from American sponge cake. Unlike American sponge cake, mamon is also a very soft and creamy type of cake.

Mamon can also be referred to as a Filipino mini chiffon cake. Sometimes, mamon can have a moist and buttery top.

Cake in Tagalog: Puto

The most basic type of kakanin in the Philippines uses a simple recipe. It’s made from ground rice that was fermented. The fermented ground rice will be then mixed with sugar and liquid ingredients such as milk and water. 

The mixture will then be steamed. It can be enjoyed on its own or can be eaten with other savory dishes like pancit and dinuguan.

This steamed cake can also be served any time of the year. Puto, therefore, becomes perfect to bring to a gathering or potluck. 

Traditionally, puto gets made from ground rice and can be eaten by itself. However, it can also be consumed with butter or grated coconut. 

However, puto recipes have various versions. Instead of using ground glutinous rice in the batter, some prefer to use cake flour. 

Other variations feature different flavorings. These flavors include ube or purple yam and pandan. Puto can also be topped with grated cheese or salted egg.

The traditional puto uses a simple recipe. It’s typically just made glutinous rice, water, and sugar. The ingredients then get stone-grinded in order to make the batter.

Normally, the mixture will be fermented overnight before steaming them. Unlike before, everything became easy when rice flour became available.

Cake in Tagalog: Kakanin

Kakanin, made from the staple food of the Philippines, is one of the foods that bind regional differences. It represents Filipino culture, tradition, way of life, and cuisine.

Whether their grandmother prepared them, bought them in a market, or bought them from a maglalako or peddler, every Filipino has their share of experience to tell with this humble rice cake.

Kakanin was derived from two Tagalog words. The first word is “kain”. This means to eat. The other word is “kanin”. This means rice. 

Therefore, the word kakanin becomes an umbrella term for sweets made of glutinous rice and coconut milk. These two ingredients are abundant in the Philippines as in most of the other tropical countries. 

Usually, these ingredients get mixed in one of two forms. Some recipes of kakanin use galapong. Galapong gets made by soaking rice flour overnight. The mixture then gets grounded and strained using a cheesecloth. 

Other types of kakanin use simple malagkit or glutinous rice grains. These rice grains are either ground up or left whole.

Traditionally, kakanin gets sweetened with sugar and wrapped in banana leaves traditionally steamed in a special clay stove called a bibingkahan. 

A great number of kakanin variants come in different shapes, sizes, and flavorings. They also vary from the northern to the southern part of the country. 

Sometimes, the same delicacy may be called with a different name in other regions.  In some cases, the same name may mean something else to other regions.

What remains constant with the varieties of kakanin is that they all share the same main ingredients. These include regular or glutinous rice or malagkit, coconut milk and/or its meat (can be in cream, grated, strips, candied, toasted forms), sugar (either white, brown or Muscovado). 

Cake in Tagalog: Pan de Krema

Based on the Spanish delicacy, pan de crema, which means “cream bread.”

The Tagalog word for cake is pan de krema or pan de crema. This refers to the one with bread and icing. 

In the word pan de krema, pan refers to the bread and the crema refers to the icing that was made from whipped cream.

The bread gets made like traditional yeasted bread. In some cases, a brioche dough can be used to make pan de krema.

While pan de krema originally has whipped cream, other variations of cream can be used to make it. These include cream cheese buttercream and chocolate buttercream. 

Thanks to innovative and creative minds, pan de krema or cream bread now has several variants. These include  Korean cream cheese garlic bread, sour cream bread, and custard cream bread. 

Cake in English Example Sentences

Here are some examples of the word “cake” used in English sentences: 

1. I made four cakes for the Christmas party.
2. She blew out the candles on her tall birthday cake.
3. Would you like to have some cake?
4. Can you please let me have a cake?
5. The cake is so huge!

Cake in Tagalog Example Sentences

Here are some examples of sentences with the word “keyk” or cake in Tagalog: 

1. Ang keyk na ginawa mo ay sobrang sarap.
2. Bumiili kami ng keyk para sa kaarawan ng aking ate.
3. Gumawa siya ng keyk para surpresahin ang kaniyang mga magulang.
4. Gumawa ako ng keyk na talaga namang napaka espesyal.
5. Tsokolate ang paborito kung keyk mula sa tindahan ninyo.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cake in Tagalog

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Conclusion

The Philippines is known for its palatable cuisine. For those with a sweet tooth, Filipino desserts are surely a treat to your sugar cravings. 

One of these desserts is cake.

While there is no official or exact counterpart of the English word cake in Tagalog, the colloquial word keyk is used instead. While this term refers to different types of desserts, using the term cake in the Philippines is highly acceptable. 

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