Baking and fashion share a surprising amount of overlapping language; the most famous example is red velvet cake, but there’s also chiffon cake, ermine frosting, black satin cake, French silk pie, and even tweed cake. There's a pattern at play here, and it's rooted in an old style of recipe writing that hasn't been popular for more than a century.

In years gone by, recipes didn't come with photographs to judge one’s work by, and oftentimes didn't even include measurements, instead using comparisons like "add butter the size of an egg." This comparative method of judgment also extended to the texture of foods, which is how all those fabric terms ended up in cake recipes.

Without pictures and level measurements to guide the process, terms like "velvet" and "chiffon" were used to describe the texture you should be aiming for. For example, velvet is a luxuriously soft, but densely woven fabric, while chiffon is far lighter, so the chiffon cake is lighter than a red velvet cake with an airier crumb.

Fabric names were used due to stereotypes about a woman’s role in the household, as old cookbooks were written with women in mind, and it was assumed that they would be the ones doing all the cooking. Handling fabrics was also considered women's work, so a simple term like "velvet" was more than enough for experienced hands to work with.