Jump to content

Menu
Giving You and Your Child a Road Map to the Best Possible Education
The Well-Trained Mind Community

I have watched 5 seasons of Great British Bake Off and still don't know what a pudding is.

MeaganS

By MeaganS,
in The Chat Board

 Share

Recommended Posts

MeaganS

MeaganS

Posted
Posted

I've been trying to figure out what pudding means the whole time. I thought I got a good grasp of it and then Paul called the baclava-inspired filling in a pastry the pudding. It's spiced nuts and syrup. I don't understand! 

Dh is out of town so I had to rant at you guys. ?

  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
maize

maize

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, MeaganS said:

I've been trying to figure out what pudding means the whole time. I thought I got a good grasp of it and then Paul called the baclava-inspired filling in a pastry the pudding. It's spiced nuts and syrup. I don't understand! 

Dh is out of town so I had to rant at you guys. ?

Huh.

I thought puddings were usually steamed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
MeaganS

MeaganS

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, Mothersweets said:

I love the Great British Bake Off! 

I think "pudding' is just another way of saying dessert. Maybe one of our UK boards can weigh in?

What do you think of the new cast members? I like them!

 

Maybe? But sometimes they differentiate. And I can't figure it out. Like I thought biscuits were cookies but in the new season they kept differentiating between cookies and biscuits. Like maybe as a crispy vs. soft texture? 

Edited by MeaganS
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
WendyLady

WendyLady

Posted
Posted

I thought I was a pretty good baker until I started watching that show!  I had no idea there were so many different things out there to bake, just so many interesting things that are not in my usual grocery store bakery, you know?  

No idea what a pudding is.  I also thought a biscuit was a cookie, but then this season they talked about a biscuit being baked twice??  I can't remember.  

I like the new lady, I don't totally love the two new introducers, but I still love the show!  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mothersweets

Mothersweets

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, MeaganS said:

 

Maybe? But sometimes they differentiate. And I can't figure it out. Like I thought biscuits were cookies but in the new season they kept differentiating between cookies and biscuits. Like maybe as a crispy vs. soft texture? 

Hmmm, maybe they were trying to throw the word cookie around so as not confuse Americans? haha 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
MeaganS

MeaganS

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I've also noticed they are super into passion fruit. I don't know that I have ever had a passion fruit. 

Dd8 wanted a princess torte for her birthday, so we used the recipe from the show. It took literally an entire day to make because it was so difficult to translate the recipe. Even the flour was different. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ellie

Ellie

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, MeaganS said:

I've been trying to figure out what pudding means the whole time. I thought I got a good grasp of it and then Paul called the baclava-inspired filling in a pastry the pudding. It's spiced nuts and syrup. I don't understand! 

Dh is out of town so I had to rant at you guys. ?

I love that show, but I'm still confused half the time, lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
KungFuPanda

KungFuPanda

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, maize said:

Well, biscuit comes from French and means twice baked.

I don't think modern biscuits are always twice baked though. They are crisp usually, not chewy like some cookies.

Could it be biscotti? That’s a twice-baked cookie. So would a rum cake be a true pudding because of the custard sauce?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
maize

maize

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, KungFuPanda said:

Could it be biscotti? That’s a twice-baked cookie. So would a rum cake be a true pudding because of the custard sauce?

Biscotti is the Italian analog of the French word biscuit and has the same root meaning.

But the items that the words have evolved to refer to aren't identical.

Language is fascinating!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
maize

maize

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, madteaparty said:

I think it’s a sort of cake with actual (rather liquidy) pudding on top.

so I’m addicted to sticky toffee pudding and at an apparently authentic teahouse in NYC this is how they serve it. Same with treacle pudding, little individual cakes drowning in “pudding”.

 

Except that to the British the more cakeish bit is the pudding, not the sauce.

Calling custardy sorts of things pudding is an American thing.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mumto2

mumto2

Posted
Posted

We quit watching when Mary Berry left.......

Ok, I live in the north, so not a particularly fancy part of England,  but this is what my years in England taught me.  In general pudding is a term for dessert.  In a restaurant,  Do you want a pudding? refers to dessert in general in my experience.  I always look at the term pudding as a catch all,  people refer to sliced fruit as being a pudding choice.  Normally if you are serving pudding properly you have a couple of cream (single and double) choices to pour on the cakes, custard is a huge bonus.  I have watched people pour double cream on Carmel (toffee) corn and eat it with a spoon!  I never made those people Carmel corn again!

Biscuits are cookies,  doesn’t matter how many times you baked them!  ?. People are going to say the biscuits were good. If someone is referring to biscuits made by me they might get termed as cookies out of politeness.  Dd won a biscuit making contest recently with her very American peanut butter w/ chocolate chip cookies that my family calls Cowboy Cookies.  

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mothersweets

Mothersweets

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, AK_Mom4 said:

For those of you who loved Mary Berry, Paul and Sue....

You can watch the British seasons of GBBO on dailymotion.com.  These are the seasons that never made it to American TV.

Oooh thanks for this! I watched the very first seasons of GBBO years ago on youtube but they were taken down shortly after. I'd love to go back and re watch!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Alittledeal

Alittledeal

Posted
Posted (edited)

I’m from England. The word pudding can be used in two ways. The most common usage is as a synonym for dessert - any dessert. A pudding can also be a specific type of food, usually boiled or steamed and can be either sweet or savoury; steak and kidney pudding as an example. 

On the cookie vs. biscuit front, I would say that in the UK, all cookies are biscuits but not all biscuits are cookies. If somebody presented me a chocolate chip cookie ? then I would probably refer to it as a cookie not a biscuit. However, if somebody were to give me say a custard cream I would call it a biscuit.

Edited by Alittledeal
Link to comment
Share on other sites
ThisIsTheDay

ThisIsTheDay

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Mothersweets said:

I love the Great British Bake Off! 

I think "pudding' is just another way of saying dessert. Maybe one of our UK boardies can weigh in?

What do you think of the new cast members? I like them!

 

I'm suprised how much I like the new people! Prue is fine, a great replacement for Mary imo, and Noel make me laugh. The other person is fine, boring, but not annoying or anything.

Sigh. Paul. I love him on the show, but his personal life makes me dislike him. Gross.

My kid is home this weekend for the holiday, and we've been binge watching this latest season on Netflix. ?

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Storygirl

Storygirl

Posted
Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, mumto2 said:

We quit watching when Mary Berry left.......

Ok, I live in the north, so not a particularly fancy part of England,  but this is what my years in England taught me.  In general pudding is a term for dessert.  In a restaurant,  Do you want a pudding? refers to dessert in general in my experience.  I always look at the term pudding as a catch all,  people refer to sliced fruit as being a pudding choice.  Normally if you are serving pudding properly you have a couple of cream (single and double) choices to pour on the cakes, custard is a huge bonus.  I have watched people pour double cream on Carmel (toffee) corn and eat it with a spoon!  I never made those people Carmel corn again!

Biscuits are cookies,  doesn’t matter how many times you baked them!  ?. People are going to say the biscuits were good. If someone is referring to biscuits made by me they might get termed as cookies out of politeness.  Dd won a biscuit making contest recently with her very American peanut butter w/ chocolate chip cookies that my family calls Cowboy Cookies.  

 

I have never heard of double cream.

I have read a lot of British fiction, so I get the pudding and biscuit references. But cream confuses me. Double cream, clotted cream....I don't have a reference for these British things as an American. Having a couple of cream choices to go with a dessert is a strange concept!! Here we often use whipped cream, but it does not pour.

Pioneer Woman has a recipe for apple crisp topped with a reduced heavy cream, which I have made (yum!), but I can't think of another dessert that has cream poured on it that I have eaten.

The closest thing I can think of is that my grandfather used to like to put some milk on his slice of cake, which I thought was strange, and which I have never seen another person do in the forty years since.

And the thought of pouring custard on a cake.... I can't picture it. American custard doesn't really pour and is quite thick. If we are saying British custard is like American pudding, pouring pudding over a cake would be strange. And gloppy! 

When you say "a couple of cream choices," I really can't picture what that means.

We do have frozen custard, which is similar to ice cream and would be a bonus with cake!!

 

Edited by Storygirl
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Laura in CA

Laura in CA

Posted
Posted

"Pudding" is just a general term for any kind of dessert. (In the UK.) They'll say "what kind of pud do you want?" ? 

They also use "curry" to mean any kind of Indian food.

A "starter" is what we call appetizers, and they call the main dishes "mains" (which makes sense, as opposed to what we say here, entrées, which is French for starter lol).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lailasmum

lailasmum

Posted
Posted (edited)

Pudding can be any kind of dessert, but a pudding is generally the kind steamed in a basin that can be savoury or sweet. Popular types are meat fillings in suet pastry like steak and kidney or sponge puddings like treacle or spotted dick. Christmas pudding is made like this too. Because they are made the same way they all have a similar bowl shape.I grew up eating a lot of puddings but don't tend to make them these days because they're kind of heavy.

Edited by lailasmum
Link to comment
Share on other sites
lailasmum

lailasmum

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Storygirl said:

I have never heard of double cream.

I have read a lot of British fiction, so I get the pudding and biscuit references. But cream confuses me. Double cream, clotted cream....I don't have a reference for these British things as an American. Having a couple of cream choices to go with a dessert is a strange concept!! Here we often use whipped cream, but it does not pour.

Pioneer Woman has a recipe for apple crisp topped with a reduced heavy cream, which I have made (yum!), but I can't think of another dessert that has cream poured on it that I have eaten.

The closest thing I can think of is that my grandfather used to like to put some milk on his slice of cake, which I thought was strange, and which I have never seen another person do in the forty years since.

And the thought of pouring custard on a cake.... I can't picture it. American custard doesn't really pour and is quite thick. If we are saying British custard is like American pudding, pouring pudding over a cake would be strange. And gloppy! 

When you say "a couple of cream choices," I really can't picture what that means.

We do have frozen custard, which is similar to ice cream and would be a bonus with cake!!

 

I've always had custard or cream as a topping on cake, steamed pudding or fruit. It's not uncommon to buy the heavier sponge cakes like ginger cake and add custard as a quick dessert. It makes quite a filling end to a meal and it's really tasty. You can buy or make custard thick or thin enough to pour it depends what you want it for. There are loads of cream options single, double, clotted (similar thickness to soft butter), whipping and flavoured types.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
kiwik

kiwik

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 10/7/2018 at 3:39 PM, MeaganS said:

I've been trying to figure out what pudding means the whole time. I thought I got a good grasp of it and then Paul called the baclava-inspired filling in a pastry the pudding. It's spiced nuts and syrup. I don't understand! 

Dh is out of town so I had to rant at you guys. ?

It is used interchangeably with dessert.  There are steam puddings and rice puddings etc but the sweet bit after dinner is pudding.

Edited by kiwik
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mumto2

mumto2

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, Storygirl said:

I have never heard of double cream.

I have read a lot of British fiction, so I get the pudding and biscuit references. But cream confuses me. Double cream, clotted cream....I don't have a reference for these British things as an American. Having a couple of cream choices to go with a dessert is a strange concept!! Here we often use whipped cream, but it does not pour.

Pioneer Woman has a recipe for apple crisp topped with a reduced heavy cream, which I have made (yum!), but I can't think of another dessert that has cream poured on it that I have eaten.

The closest thing I can think of is that my grandfather used to like to put some milk on his slice of cake, which I thought was strange, and which I have never seen another person do in the forty years since.

And the thought of pouring custard on a cake.... I can't picture it. American custard doesn't really pour and is quite thick. If we are saying British custard is like American pudding, pouring pudding over a cake would be strange. And gloppy! 

When you say "a couple of cream choices," I really can't picture what that means.

We do have frozen custard, which is similar to ice cream and would be a bonus with cake!!

 

Custard is sold pretty widely as a dessert topping and is vanilla flavored thin American cooked pudding in my personal opinion.  It is really popular with fruit based desserts.  I found a you tube on how to make it.  

Most people just buy it and you pour it in a jug for serving.  Most of my experience comes from working at church bring and shares!

Cake almost always gets cream poured on it when cream is available. Even though the double cream whips they just pour it on in liquid form.  

I grew up eating my apple crisp with milk in the northern US  but that was it.  In terms of milk or cream on desserts that wasn’t whipped.  The whole do we have enough double, single, custard, for pudding at bring and shares (potlucks) was a total revelation!  No one in my family adds it to anything except Christmas Pudding which does seem nicer with custard.  My kids are pretty British about most things but not soggy desserts. ? 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mumto2

mumto2

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, perkybunch said:

I think crackers are also biscuits.  But I have a follow up questions to cookies as biscuits:  Do British people not eat soft cookies?  And are soft cookies biscuits?

Crackers seem to be biscuits in most people’s vocabulary.   Cookies/biscuits are generally sold in a tube style packaging so are firm.  You can buy soft cookies by the bakery section.....5 for £1 to £2 depending on store and type, I believe those are labeled cookies.....milk chocolate chip cookies for instance.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lady Florida.

Lady Florida.

Posted
Posted
On 10/6/2018 at 10:45 PM, happi duck said:

Lol!

My best guess has been that "pudding" means dessert 

I'm so old that a song lyric keeps running through my head as I read this thread - "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

from Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd. 

 

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
almondbutterandjelly

almondbutterandjelly

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, mumto2 said:

Crackers seem to be biscuits in most people’s vocabulary.   Cookies/biscuits are generally sold in a tube style packaging so are firm.  You can buy soft cookies by the bakery section.....5 for £1 to £2 depending on store and type, I believe those are labeled cookies.....milk chocolate chip cookies for instance.  

Another follow up question... so only crunchy cookies and crunchy crackers seemed to be allowed during Biscuit Week.  What would the week have to be titled for soft cookies to be allowed?  Cookie Week seems too limiting, unless you all have other things you call cookies, too?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lady Florida.

Lady Florida.

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 10/6/2018 at 10:50 PM, StellaM said:

 

Well....it's a pudding! ?

https://www.vox.com/2015/11/29/9806038/great-british-baking-show-pudding-biscuit

This was interesting and the quoted part from the article makes a whole lot of sense. 

Cooking vocabulary is a place where American English and British English tend to diverge a lot. If you frequently read British recipes or cookbooks, you're constantly coming up against references to aubergines (eggplants), mangetouts (snow peas), courgettes (zucchini), coriander (cilantro), sultanas (golden raisins), and rocket (arugula).

In savory foods, these differences often reflect patterns in immigration and cultural exchange. The British terms are usually French, while the American versions are influenced by Italy: zucchini and arugula came to the US with Italian immigrants, who brought their words for it; in the UK, they were more likely to come across the channel.

Edited by Lady Florida.
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mumto2

mumto2

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, perkybunch said:

Another follow up question... so only crunchy cookies and crunchy crackers seemed to be allowed during Biscuit Week.  What would the week have to be titled for soft cookies to be allowed?  Cookie Week seems too limiting, unless you all have other things you call cookies, too?

I have no idea because I tend to hear about my American cookies, so I would guess it would be called that.  Just to increase the confusion there are also traybakes which Americans ( at least me) call bar cookies.  I quit watching with Mary Berry but I think they do traybakes.  My favorite traybake is Mary Berry’s lemon drizzle.  http://www.maryberry.co.uk/recipes/baking/lemon-drizzle-traybake

Don’t get me started on the whole aubergine/ eggplant thing.  I never can think of the right word when I need to for the people I am with!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
regentrude

regentrude

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, perkybunch said:

Another follow up question... so only crunchy cookies and crunchy crackers seemed to be allowed during Biscuit Week.  What would the week have to be titled for soft cookies to be allowed?  Cookie Week seems too limiting, unless you all have other things you call cookies, too?

Maybe the British don't do soft cookies?

I cannot recall ever having a soft cookie growing up in Germany; a proper cookie had to be crisp. It was only after I moved to the US that I encountered soft and chewy ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lady Florida.

Lady Florida.

Posted
Posted
Just now, regentrude said:

Maybe the British don't do soft cookies?

I cannot recall ever having a soft cookie growing up in Germany; a proper cookie had to be crisp. It was only after I moved to the US that I encountered soft and chewy ones.

I don't recall cookies being soft growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s. I don't remember hearing about soft or chewy cookies until the late 70s to early 80s. I wonder if they used to be crisp here too and something changed. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...