Question: How were the first cakes made?
About the article "Cake", section "Abstract".

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A Banbury cake is a spiced, currant-filled, flat pastry cake similar to an Eccles cake, although it is more oval in shape.
Once made and sold exclusively in Banbury, England, Banbury cakes have been made in the region to secret recipes since 1586 or earlier and are still made there today, although not in such quantity.
The cakes were once sent as far afield as Australia, India and America.
Banbury cakes were first made by Edward Welchman, whose shop was on Parsons Street.
Documented recipes were published by Gervase Markham and others during the 17th century.
These recipes generally differ largely to the modern idea of a Banbury cake, in terms of their size, the nature of the pastry, and how the cake is made.
In the late 19th century, the notorious refreshment rooms at Swindon railway station sold "Banbury cakes and pork pies (obviously stale)".
Besides currants, the filling typically includes mixed peel, brown sugar, rose water, rum, and nutmeg.
Banbury cakes were traditionally enjoyed with afternoon tea. 
A layer cake (US English) or sandwich cake (UK English), also called a sandwich in UK English, is a cake consisting of multiple stacked sheets of cake, held together by frosting or another type of filling, such as jam or other preserves.
Most cake recipes can be made into layer cakes; butter cakes and sponge cakes are common choices.
Frequently, the cake is covered with icing, but sometimes, the sides are left undecorated, so that the filling and the number of layers are visible.
Popular flavor combinations include the German chocolate cake, red velvet cake, Black Forest cake, and carrot cake with cream cheese icing.
Many wedding cakes are decorated layer cakes.
In the mid-19th century, modern cakes were first described in English.
Maria Parloa's "Appledore Cook Book", published in Boston in 1872, contained one of the first layer cake recipes.
Another early recipe for layer cake was published in "Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book", published in London in 1894. 
Cakes may be classified according to the occasion for which they are intended.
For example, wedding cakes, birthday cakes, cakes for first communion, Christmas cakes, Halloween cakes and Passover plava (a type of sponge cake sometimes made with matzo meal) are all identified primarily according to the celebration they are intended to accompany.
The cutting of a wedding cake constitutes a social ceremony in some cultures.
The Ancient Roman marriage ritual of "confarreatio" originated in the sharing of a cake.
Particular types of cake may be associated with particular festivals, such as stollen or chocolate log (at Christmas), babka and simnel cake (at Easter), or mooncake.
There has been a long tradition of decorating an iced cake at Christmas time; other cakes associated with Christmas include chocolate log and mince pies. 
The first mention of the cupcake can be traced as far back as 1796, when a recipe notation of "a cake to be baked in small cups" was written in "American Cookery" by Amelia Simmons.
The earliest documentation of the term "cupcake" was in "Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats" in 1828 in Eliza Leslie's "Receipts" cookbook.
In the early 19th century, there were two different uses for the name "cup cake" or "cupcake".
In previous centuries, before muffin tins were widely available, the cakes were often baked in individual pottery cups, ramekins, or molds and took their name from the cups they were baked in.
This is the use of the name that has remained, and the name of "cupcake" is now given to any small cake that is about the size of a teacup.
While English "fairy cakes" vary in size more than American cupcakes, they are traditionally smaller and are rarely topped with elaborate icing.
The other kind of "cup cake" referred to a cake whose ingredients were measured by volume, using a standard-sized cup, instead of being weighed.
Recipes whose ingredients were measured using a standard-sized cup could also be baked in cups; however, they were more commonly baked in tins as layers or loaves.
In later years, when the use of volume measurements was firmly established in home kitchens, these recipes became known as "1234 cakes" or "quarter cakes", so called because they are made up of four ingredients: one cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs.
They are plain yellow cakes, somewhat less rich and less expensive than pound cake, due to using about half as much butter and eggs compared to pound cake.
The names of these two major classes of cakes were intended to signal the method to the baker; "cup cake" uses a volume measurement, and "pound cake" uses a weight measurement. 
In classical Roman culture, 'cakes' of flat rounds made with flour containing nuts, leavened with yeast, and sweetened with honey were occasionally served at special birthdays, but more often at weddings as in Ancient Greece.
In early Europe, the words for cake and bread were virtually interchangeable; the only difference being that cakes were sweet while bread was not.
In the 15th century, bakeries in Germany conceived the idea of marketing one-layer cakes for customers' birthdays as well as for only their weddings, and thus the modern birthday cake was born.
During the 17th century, the birthday cake took on more or less its contemporary form.
However, these elaborate cakes, which possessed many aspects of contemporary cakes (such as multiple layers, icing, and decorations), were only available to the very wealthy.
Birthday cakes became more and more proletarianized as a result of the industrial revolution, as materials and tools became more advanced and more accessible.