The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 letter word SUGAR
I've seen this crossword clue in The Daily Telegraph
S
U
G
A
R
More clues leading to the result SUGAR
- Tease American over sweetheart
- Half suck garish sweet substance
- Tease us for bringing up term of endearment
- Make fun of us over fattening food
- Make fun of American for rejecting sweetener
- Coming back, make fun of our group? That’s annoying!
- Tease Yankee over sweetheart
- Tease American about cause of obesity?
- Portion of asparagus revolts pet
- Tabloidsent up GI’s sweetheart
Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "Cake ingredient" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case cake ingredient = sugar.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does SUGAR mean?
SUGAR noun- Sucrose in the form of small crystals, obtained from sugar cane or sugar beet and used to sweeten food and drink.
- A specific variety of sugar.
- Any of various small carbohydrates that are used by organisms to store energy.
- A small serving of this substance (typically about one teaspoon), used to sweeten a drink.
- A term of endearment.
- A kiss.
- Effeminacy in a male, often implying homosexuality.
- Diabetes.
- Anything resembling sugar in taste or appearance, especially in chemistry.
- Compliment or flattery used to disguise or render acceptable something obnoxious; honeyed or soothing words.
- Heroin.
- Money.
- Syntactic sugar.
- To add sugar to; to sweeten with sugar.
- To make (something unpleasant) seem less so.
- In making maple sugar, to complete the process of boiling down the syrup till it is thick enough to crystallize; to approach or reach the state of granulation; with the preposition off.
- To apply sugar to trees or plants in order to catch moths.
- To rewrite (source code) using syntactic sugar.
- To compliment (a person).
- Used in place of shit!