British desserts, explained for Americans confused by the Great British Baking Show (2024)

While Americans are waking up to miraclesThe Great British Bakeshow, they also realize something else: no one on this side of the Atlantic really knows what these desserts are.

So to accompany your Thanksgiving visit to the greatest baking competition of our time, here's a guide to what they're actually talking about. The differences between what British and Americans mean by 'pudding' and 'biscuits' may sound strange. But underlying these differences are long-standing cultural differences, which explain not only why the two countries call food different things, but also why they eat so differently.

The Two Meanings of "Pudding"

“Pudding” can generally refer to the sweet, final dish of a meal, what Americans know as “dessert.” (This being Britain, this has class implications. Nancy Mitford, in a famous essay comparing the pronunciations of upper-class Britons with those of everyone else, categorized 'pudding' as used by the elite and ' sweet' as used by the proletariat.)

But a pudding can also be a specific dish – and a British pudding is still not the same as an American one. American puddings are closer to what the British would call "custard".

A British pudding is a dish, savory or sweet, that is prepared by boiling or steaming it in something: a shell, a piece of cloth, or even animal intestines. Thatearliest puddings, in this sense of the word, were sausages; black pudding, a type of sausage made with pig's blood, is sometimes included in a traditional English breakfast.

Other puddings are sweet, such asspotted co*ck– a kind of steamed currant cake, barely sweet and, like many puddings, flavored with suet or beef tallow instead of butter. Marmalade roly-poly, or roly-poly pudding, is traditionalsteamed; it consists of a dough made from suet, spread with jam and rolled up.

And to make matters a little more confusing, some dishes are called "puddings", which are sometimes baked but are more likely to be boiled or steamed. The best example issticky toffee pudding, a date cake with caramel sauce that is traditionally steamed but is now often baked. (It could also be originalCanadian, not British.)

Americans are excellent in the way we use 'crackers'

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American biscuits are small, fluffy, quick breads, leavened with baking powder or buttermilk and served with butter and jam or gravy. They are close to what the British would callscones. But American scones are different because nothing about them is straight forward.

For most of the rest of the English-speaking world, a cracker is what Americans would call a cookie or a cracker. Cookies can be sweet (shortbread) or salty. They are baked in the oven and are crispy, not chewy. That's why the cookie is challengingThe Great British Bakeshowusually contains both sweet and savory crackers.

How about cool cookies, like chocolate chips or snickerdoodle? These are not nearly as common in Britain as they are in the US, but when made there they are still called cookies.

Sum Oxford Dictionaries blogput it:

So you get it, right? A British biscuit is an American biscuit and an American biscuit is a British biscuit and an American biscuit is a British scone and an American scone is something completely different. Simple!

Actually everything is called something else

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Cooking vocabulary is one place where American English and British English differ greatly. If you often read British recipes or cookbooks, you come across them all the timereferencesfor aubergines (eggplants), snow peas (sugar peas), courgettes (zucchini), coriander (cilantro), raisins (golden raisins) and arugula (arugula).

For salty foods, these differences often reflect patterns of immigration and cultural exchange. The British terms are mostly French, while the American versions are influenced by Italy: zucchini and arugula came to the United States with Italian immigrants, who brought their words for them; in Britain they had a greater chance of encountering the Channel.

The same difference occurs with terms for desserts. British toffee is American caramel. American bar biscuits are British tray bakes. British scones are less buttery and less sweet than American scones, even though they have the same name.

In the US, a flapjack is a less common way of saying "pancake"; in Britain it is onecool, sweet granola bar. What the English call apancakeis what Americans would call a crepe, and American pancakes, which are fluffier and puffier, are called "American pancakes". (Scottish pancakes, on the other hand, are quite close to American pancakes.)

In this case, the US and Britain used the same words, and it was the British who differed: Americans have been saying "flapjack" since colonial times, and in Britain the word referred to flat cakes, like pancakes. Good. It wasn't until the 1930s that Britain began referring to oatcakes instead.

But it's not just the words: the desserts themselves are different

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The most interesting differences onThe Great British Bakeshowdoes not appear in what the pastry is called. They are primarily in what the participants bake.

Some of the flavor challenges and the baking challenges, which are influenced more by French than British traditions, are very recognizable to an American audience. But traditional British desserts are very different from traditional American desserts, and...The Great British Bakeshowreally just scratching the surface here.

Almost all classic British desserts (Serious Eats has a good guide for it) is rarely if ever eaten in the United States. The most common reference for trifle is an episode ofFriends. Eton Mess is a mixture of meringue, strawberries and cream, named after one of Britain's most exclusive schools. Banoffee pie is so sweet that America sometimes gets the blame, but the mix of thatbananas, caramel and whipped creamin a graham cracker crust is actually British through and through. Even well-known pastries like cake are often a little different; sponge cake plays a prominent role, sometimes rolled into a Swiss roll, sometimes checked in different colors for an extra touch.Battenberg.

American and British desserts are so different because sugar became more cheaply available after the United States gained independence in the late 1700s. British cuisine generally did not have a major influence on American cuisine, primarily because the ingredients available in colonial times were very different, even though the underlying techniques were similar. Traditional British food, when it is good, relies on easily available ingredients that are simply prepared. From the 19th century onwards, the French dominated the professional kitchen with their more refined sauces and pastries.

Many British desserts are from later generations, so the answer to why Americans don't eat British desserts is the same as why we don't really eat fish and chips or mushy peas. British food is different in part because it is one of the few types of British culture that has not left much of an impression in the modern United States. So ifThe Great British BakeshowIf you're craving a Victoria sponge or a banoffe pie, you might be out of luck.

Read further:

• British food history continuesbudding, immediatelyadd
• Separated by a common language that tries to answerwhat the British would call American pudding
• Anglotopia has more to offerthe history of puddings
• INhistory of pancakesvan National Geographic
• How pancakesvaries around the world
• More about the difference betweenBritish and American scones

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