Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape. Determining whether a given food should be classified as bread, cake, or pastry can be difficult.

Modern cake, especially layer cakes, normally contain a combination of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter or oil, with some varieties also requiring liquid (typically milk or water) and leavening agents (such as yeast or baking powder). Flavorful ingredients like fruit purées, nuts, dried or candied fruit, or extracts are often added, and numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients are possible. Cakes are often filled with fruit preserves or dessert sauces (like pastry cream), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders or candied fruit.

Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays. There are countless cake recipes; some are bread-like, some rich and elaborate, and many are centuries old. Cake making is no longer a complicated procedure; while at one time considerable labor went into cake making (particularly the whisking of egg foams), baking equipment and directions have been simplified that even the most amateur cook may bake a cake.

Marilyn Manson (born Brian Hugh Warner; January 5, 1969) is an American musician, artist and former music journalist known for his controversial stage persona and image as the lead singer of the eponymous band Marilyn Manson. His stage name was formed from juxtaposing the names of two 1960s American cultural icons, namely actress Marilyn Monroe and convicted multiple murder convictCharles Manson as a critical and, simultaneously, laudatory appraisal of America and its peculiar culture. The seemingly outrageous styles for which he models and the controversy surrounding his lyrics have led to his public appeal.

Marilyn Manson was born in Canton, Ohio. He is the only child of Barbra Warner (maiden name Wyer) and Hugh Warner. Manson is of Polish and German descent on his father's side, and is a fourth cousin twice removed of Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. In his autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, he detailed his grandfather's sexual fetishes (including bestiality and sadomasochism) which led to the forming of Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids.