Yes, there is a difference. You shouldn't be baking a cake (or anything else) in a microwave oven.
A microwave oven excites the water within your food. When you put in dough or batter, the excited water doesn't bind with the starch the way it does under normal heat, it escapes the starch, leaving you with a stone-hard piece of dough or batter.
There is something called "five-minutes microwave cake". I haven't tried it, but in the recipes floating around the interwebs it gets eaten while still hot (so probably before it has had the chance to get too hard). It also seems that there is a very small heat frame in which it gets OK. Bake it too much, and it will get hard, or burn. Bake it too little, and you end up with a mug of warm batter. It is also supposed to be a cupcake, I suspect that if you try to bake a bigger portion at once, there will be enough temperature difference in different zones of the batter to get underbaked, baked and hard portions all at once.
Bottom line: if you want to try for the fun of it, make a cupcake in the microwave, and watch your energy input (microwave watt setting and time) very closely, then eat immediately. You can find recipes all over the Web, e. g. on Instructables. If you want a real cake, don't bake in a microwave.
I have used gas ovens with gas hobs, electric ovens with electric hobs, and electric ovens with gas hobs. By far the best combination is gas hob and electric oven. I'll break the pros and cons down:
Gas Hob
Pros:
- Heats up quickly
- Heat changes quickly - when you turn it off, it's off.
- Fine control over heat
Cons:
- Can create 'hotspots', but this is why you have different sized rings
- Can be fussier to clean
- Obvious danger of gas leaks, but modern safety systems mitigate this
Electric hobs are pretty much the opposite. They can be slow to heat and react slowly to heat changes (so if you want to go from a boil to a simmer you have to plan 20 minutes ahead). They also have the disadvantage of remaining hot even when they're turned off, which can be dangerous. Their only advantage over gas hobs is a more even heat across the pan, and being easier to clean.
Electric Oven (preferably fan)
Pros:
- Quick to preheat
- Even temperature throughout the oven
- Precise temperature control
Cons:
In contrast, gas ovens are slow to preheat, have marked zones of different heat (cooler at the bottom, hot at the top) and have coarser heat control. Also, because the flame is generally at the back of the oven, you can end up burning larger dishes that butt right up to it. All this builds up to make an unreliable oven (in terms of cooking results).
In conclusion, a gas hob/electric oven combo is the best because it gives you ultimate control over your cooking.
Best Answer
For baking cakes and breads it is important to control the humidity in the oven. In early stages of baking one typically needs the humidity to remain in the baking chamber, which is hard to do with a gas oven. Two of the bakeries near my house use electric ovens with brick lined baking chambers; the other uses gas.
Expansion
Gas and electric ovens can be built to bake the same way if cost is not an issue. Most home gas ovens will circulate the combustion products (mainly water vapor and carbon dioxide) in the cooking chamber. As the flames burn, combustion products need to be vented out of the baking chamber. Electric ovens also need vents in the baking chamber to help maintain the pressure as the air inside expands.
Steam is essential in the initial stages of baking for good crust formation in breads and crack-free cake surfaces. The oven cavity can hold much more steam than released from the gas combustion and it is my inference that the steam content of an electric oven will be higher (I cannot find published steam measurements inside ovens). After the dough expansion, the vapor coming off of the dough or batter needs to removed quickly for browning and for the inside to cook well. The constant flow in a gas oven makes it better at that. In an electric oven a peep or two during the last baking stages will handle excess moisture.
Two bakeries near my house use electric ovens, the other, which makes excellent French baguettes, uses a gas oven. The baker there has had both electric and gas ovens and he prefers the caramelization of the gas oven. But note that he can handle the moisture problem with the steam injector of his professional gas oven. He also noted that using gas ovens require skill as they have temperature and moisture quirks.
Recipes may be adapted to either gas or electric ovens. In the US the majority of recipes are designed for the electric oven (they're more popular).