Bakery and pastry products are highly appreciated worldwide. Due to consumer demand; a varied diversity of these products are now extensively served in markets and different food-servicing establishments. Cakes especially cream based ones with different ingredients of topping and filling could be considered nowadays as the most popular and higher sold bakeries in our country or even worldwide. Thus, this study is meant to judge the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) of cake quality and safety awareness among the public Egyptian population in order to assess the gap between consumer needs, expectations and reality. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 1300 participants from different areas in Egypt with
different age, gender, education, residence and occupation. A structured questionnaire was designed from twenty-three questions dealing with consumer KAP of cake quality, safety andstorage and answers were analyzed statistically. The major part of participants in this survey was females (54%), (72%) was found to be in the age group 21 - 40 years, (61%) were
bachelor or equivalent degree of education, (83%) belonged to urban population and (70%) were non-health field occupations. (78.8%) of the responders consume cake on occasion, (92.6%) of them selected to consume cakes for the spongy cake part itself and (58.7%) choosethe cream as the most favor type of topping. The majority of responders (84.7%) select their cakes based on taste parameter. It worse to mention that (53%) of participants didn't know the opposing health effect of cream-based cakes on human health, although that (80%) agree with considering cake as a source of food poisoning and (13%) of the of participants had alreadysuffered from cream-based cakes food poisoning. It is also not good to know that, the majority could preserve cake for more than one week (42.9%); others accept the addition of preservatives to cake in order to prolong its shelf life (82%). In conclusion, the suggestion of this study was that, the Egyptian population had adequate knowledge about cake safety and quality issues, but sometimes apparent knowledge failed to be interpreted into practices especially about storage optimum conditions, therefore it seems necessary to communicate directly with cake
consumers from several categories to increase the awareness, improve the attitude and encourage good practices regarding this area
storage optimum conditions, therefore it seems necessary to communicate directly with cake
consumers from several categories to increase the awareness, improve the attitude and
encourage good practices regarding this area