There were, indeed, other ways of leavening cakes. Yeast cakes certainly existed (and are still made, particularly in the case of a few traditional yeast cakes). In fact, there was, and still remains, a bit of a blurry line between bread and cake- recipes exist for breads enriched with fats, eggs, and/or sweet ingredients.

Additionally, cakes may be leavened by beating egg whites and incorporating them into the batter. The air trapped in bubbles in the beaten whites expands when heated, providing lift. This type of cake had roots in renaissance Europe, but a very early recorded recipe in English was included in The English Huswife in 1615.

There are also a few cake recipes to be found in The Art of Cookery, a late 18th century English cookbook. Several of them involve creaming the butter, which introduces bubbles into it, and then adding beaten whites, but yeast-leavened cake makes an appearance as well.