How to estimate homemade cake?

Mykaelous

Alright so obviously there aren't really going to be nutrition facts for home made cakes. Normally for a home made dish I try to find a comparable processed food to use in order to estimate calories. In this case however it seems most of the portion size is labeled as 1 slice. Which seems hardly helpful since I can imagine someone slicing a cake in half and calling it "1 slice." So this is what I am thinking. We know that 28 grams = 1 oz. We also know that some of that will be water weight and other calorific ally dead weight. If we assume that it was made of pure sugar we can simply multiply 28 games by 4 cal/carb and we would get the result 112 calories per ounce as a high point. I would consider this to be a safe estimate of how many calories would be in the cake. I know that there will be some butter in a slice of cake and some protein from the flour but the major macro-nutrient seems to be sugar. What do you think of my through process?

Mykaelous

Also this is an estimate for cake that I did not make. If I made it myself I could measure what I put into it and calculate a more exact result.

WBB55

For my logging away from home, cake without frosting is pretty similar to each other if you weigh it. As in 28g of chocolate cake (minus frosting) is very similar to 28g of confetti cake (minus frosting). Angel food cake is typically fluffier, so a 1x1x1" slice of angel food has less calories than a 1x1x1" brownie because the angel food 1^3" weighs less.

If you can weigh it, do so. If you can't, try to judge if it's as dense as a brownie, angel food, or somewhere in the middle (like a chocolate cake on the slightly fluffy side and a pound cake on the slightly non-fluffy side). And then use the same weight/size of a similar "type" of cake.

Add frosting and, man, it's tougher to guess. Frosting is mostly butter and sugar.

ColinsMommaOC

To say that cakes are just sugar is inaccurate. Cakes are generally made with the following: Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, salt, milk, baking powder. Sometimes there is oil, and then you get to flavors (chocolate, cocoa powder, extracts, fruits, etc). That is JUST the cake. It does not include any frosting or filling.... If you know the flavor of the cake, you can look up recipes online that will give you a better look at what goes into them and that will help you figure out the calories and macros better. It still wont be accurate because you dont know how the person making it measured, but it would be better than saying my cake weighed 28 grams and I assume all of it was sugar.

jemhh

Scratch what I wrote. I have to think this through.

SueInAz

WBB55 wrote: »

For my logging away from home, cake without frosting is pretty similar to each other if you weigh it. As in 28g of chocolate cake (minus frosting) is very similar to 28g of confetti cake (minus frosting). Angel food cake is typically fluffier, so a 1x1x1" slice of angel food has less calories than a 1x1x1" brownie because the angel food 1^3" weighs less.

If you can weigh it, do so. If you can't, try to judge if it's as dense as a brownie, angel food, or somewhere in the middle (like a chocolate cake on the slightly fluffy side and a pound cake on the slightly non-fluffy side). And then use the same weight/size of a similar "type" of cake.

Add frosting and, man, it's tougher to guess. Frosting is mostly butter and sugar.

This is good advice. Frosting is probably half carbs, half fat but it's pretty difficult to weigh once it's attached to the cake.

OP, I'd personally factor in more fat than 4 calories per gram.

WBB55

SueInAz wrote: »

WBB55 wrote: »

For my logging away from home, cake without frosting is pretty similar to each other if you weigh it. As in 28g of chocolate cake (minus frosting) is very similar to 28g of confetti cake (minus frosting). Angel food cake is typically fluffier, so a 1x1x1" slice of angel food has less calories than a 1x1x1" brownie because the angel food 1^3" weighs less.

If you can weigh it, do so. If you can't, try to judge if it's as dense as a brownie, angel food, or somewhere in the middle (like a chocolate cake on the slightly fluffy side and a pound cake on the slightly non-fluffy side). And then use the same weight/size of a similar "type" of cake.

Add frosting and, man, it's tougher to guess. Frosting is mostly butter and sugar.

This is good advice. Frosting is probably half carbs, half fat but it's pretty difficult to weigh once it's attached to the cake.

OP, I'd personally factor in more fat than 4 calories per gram.

If you weighed the total cake (including frosting), and it came to 100g. If you put in 50g of sugar and 50g of butter, I suppose you could do worse to estimate the calories. The protein is negligible if we're just talking about guessing. I'd say this formula might also work for things like chocolate chip cookies. I personally try to weigh things and then find a similar reliable entry.

Mykaelous

Thanks for the help. I'll use some of your hint's and just not eat so much so that if I am off, it won't affect my overall dieting goals. Thanks again.

kshama2001

Mykaelous wrote: »

Also this is an estimate for cake that I did not make. If I made it myself I could measure what I put into it and calculate a more exact result.

Ask for the recipe then put it into the recipe builder?

For baked goods I've made recently:
- Joy of Cooking Brownies Cockaigneare 132 calories per ounce.
- 1/12 of this chocolate zucchini cake is 492 calories.

vivmom2014

I've seen some crazy-low calorie counts for a slice of cake in the database. Things like 240, 275. I find that a bit hard to swallow. (Yes. Pun.)

Cake has LOTS of calories. I say: if you're going to have a piece of homemade cake with frosting, first of all have a big enough piece (!!) and second of all, count it at least 450 calories. At least.

bjess8411

Mykaelous wrote: »

Alright so obviously there aren't really going to be nutrition facts for home made cakes. Normally for a home made dish I try to find a comparable processed food to use in order to estimate calories. In this case however it seems most of the portion size is labeled as 1 slice. Which seems hardly helpful since I can imagine someone slicing a cake in half and calling it "1 slice." So this is what I am thinking. We know that 28 grams = 1 oz. We also know that some of that will be water weight and other calorific ally dead weight. If we assume that it was made of pure sugar we can simply multiply 28 games by 4 cal/carb and we would get the result 112 calories per ounce as a high point. I would consider this to be a safe estimate of how many calories would be in the cake. I know that there will be some butter in a slice of cake and some protein from the flour but the major macro-nutrient seems to be sugar. What do you think of my through process?

Cake is super easy if you enter all ingredients and quantities into the recipe builder on this site and then cut it into the number of pieces you want and use that as the servings. Usually you can get about 12-20 servings from one cake. I have a harder time when I make something like soup or stir-fry where I would actually have to count all the cups to know how many cups are in it.

doylejohnpaul787

I have a harder time when I make something like soup or stir-fry where I would actually have to count all the cups to know how many cups are in it.

You enter all your ingredients into the recipe builder, weigh the empty pan in grams, cook your meal, weigh the pan full of food and take away the weight of the pan. Now enter this number into the recipe builder as the number of portions. You can then weigh out as much as you want to eat and log that number as the number of portions in your serving.

Strawblackcat

If it was a single-layer cake, I'd estimate 350 and call it a day. If it was a layer cake, 350 X however many layers there were.

Or you could just say that the work you had to go through to figure out the calories burned all of the calories that were in the cake.

laur357

If I don't have the exact recipe used, i look for a similar cake and calculate the cals for that recipe. Triple layer chocolate cake with salted caramel? See if there's a Martha Stewart, Bon Apetit, Betty Crocker, or food and wine cake that looks about the same. Many break down the nutritional value and number of servings for you with the recipe. I prefer this method to picking a random restaurant item or pre-existing entry.