There’s two ways you can go with the word “bread”. One is the exclusive definition, a yeast risen dough made from wheat flour or other gluten-containing grains and baked in a hot oven. Cornbread, flatbreads, quick breads, biscuits and most pastries don’t fit this definition. The inclusive definition basically just looks at the role a food plays in a meal. If it’s dry, made from some type of flour or grain, gluten free or otherwise, and eaten as a side, a vessel for delivering butter or jelly, or used to pick up foods or sop up sauces, it’s bread, whether that’s a tortilla, injera or a pancake.
Cake uses chemical leaveners and/or eggs for structure and lift, rather than gluten and yeast. So by that definition cornbread is cake. I’d say the same for all the banana or zucchini “bread” I’ve ever had. Cornbread usually isn’t very sweet, or eaten for dessert though, which are large components of what most people think of as “cake”.
I voted “both” but I also heavily considered “either”. It’s on the edge of not very precise definitions, and depending on the person or the application, it could go either way, or it could fall into both categories.
It is a quickbread. I love best the not so sweet varieties, with a high proportion of cornmeal. Cornbread can be made soft and more cakelike but I do not think that is the best way to do it.
It’s neither bread nor cake; it’s cornbread. Just because it has ‘bread’ in the name doesn’t mean anything…just like ‘toad in a hole’ doesn’t have any toads in it.
Your first definition is too restrictive and your second definition is probably too loose.
Irish soda bread uses the chemical leavening, and (at least in its original Irish form) is definitely bread. Challah is full of eggs, but it’s definitely bread (perhaps with a similarity to brioche, but it still functions as bread).
It’s cake, because it’s made from batter. And tomatoes are fruits, because they have seeds. If your cornbread has seeds, it’s fruitcake. If a batter hits a tomato, it’s ketchup. There is no such thing as catsup.
I would have said bread until I encountered a store bought brand that puts both sugar* and vanilla in it. It was also rather moist. It was thus just a cake.
So it depends on how you make it.
*I can take a little sugar, just not too much. Homemade bread is often sweetened. But vanilla?!?
There ought to be a fourth category for things like cornbread and Irish soda bread - or maybe “Viennoiserie” (which covers brioche, croissants and I think challah ) should be expanded to include items that use chemical leavening.
I could be persuaded that sweetbreads (like banana bread or zucchini bread) shouldn’t be called “bread”, but I wouldn’t call them “cake”, either, mostly on the grounds that you don’t spread butter on cake. I’d be more inclined to put sweetbreads in their own category.
kayaker, I’d agree that chili isn’t soup, because it’s stew. Though admittedly the line between soup and stew can be a bit blurry. To simplify, though, if you can eat it on a plate and/or with a fork, it’s stew, not soup.
