Nothing keeps American away from cake piece (6)
I believe the answer is:
nickel
'piece' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to property as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'nothing keeps american away from cake' is the wordplay.
'nothing' becomes 'nil' (eg nil is zero in football).
'keeps' is an insertion indicator (inserted letters are kept inside).
'american' becomes 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names).
'away from' suggests deleting specific letters.
'cake' with 'a' taken out is 'cke'.
'nil' enclosing 'cke' is 'NICKEL'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nickel that I've seen before include "One twentieth of a US dollar" , "Coin worth half a dime" , "American five cent piece" , "Metallic element, Ni" , "5c coin" .)