Yorkshire pudding is a baked pudding made from a batter of eggs, flour, and milk or water. A common British side dish, it is a versatile food that can be served in numerous ways depending on its ingredients, size, and the accompanying components of the meal. As a first course, it can be served with onion gravy. For a main course, it may be served with meat and gravy, and is part of the traditional Sunday roast, but can also be filled with foods such as bangers and mash to make a meal. Sausages can be added to make toad in the hole. In some parts of England, the Yorkshire pudding can be eaten as a dessert, with a sweet sauce called raspberry vinegar. The 18th-century cookery writer Hannah Glasse was the first to use the term "Yorkshire pudding" in print.
Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce to the thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs. The most common custards are used in custard desserts or dessert sauces and typically include sugar and vanilla; however, savory custards are also found, e.g., in quiche.
Trifle is a layered dessert of English origin. The usual ingredients are a thin layer of sponge fingers or sponge cake soaked in sherry or another fortified wine, a fruit element, custard and whipped cream layered in that ascending order in a glass dish. The contents of a trifle are highly variable and many varieties exist, some forgoing fruit entirely and instead using other ingredients, such as chocolate, coffee or vanilla. The fruit and sponge layers may be suspended in fruit-flavoured jelly, and these ingredients are usually arranged to produce three or four layers. The assembled dessert can be topped with whipped cream or, more traditionally, syllabub.
A posset was originally a popular British hot drink made of milk curdled with wine or ale, often spiced, which was often used as a remedy.
French toast is a dish of sliced bread soaked in beaten eggs and often milk or cream, then pan-fried. Alternative names and variants include eggy bread, Bombay toast, gypsy toast, and poor knights (of Windsor).
Cheesecake is a dessert made with a soft fresh cheese, eggs, and sugar. It may have a crust or base made from crushed cookies, graham crackers, pastry, or sometimes sponge cake. Cheesecake may be baked or unbaked, and is usually refrigerated.
A custard pie is any type of uncooked custard mixture placed in an uncooked or partially cooked crust and baked together. In North America, "custard pie" commonly refers to a plain mixture of milk, eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and sometimes nutmeg combined with a pie crust. It is distinctly different from a cream pie, which contains cooked custard poured into a cooled, precooked crust. In the United Kingdom, the comical or political act of pieing is conventionally done with a "custard pie". Some common custard pies include pumpkin pie, lemon and buttermilk chess pie, coconut cream pie, and buko pie. True custard is defined as a liquid thickened with eggs. The often large number of whole eggs in custard pie make it very rich.
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy is a cookbook by Hannah Glasse (1708–1770), first published in 1747. It was a bestseller for a century after its first publication, dominating the English-speaking market and making Glasse one of the most famous cookbook authors of her time. The book ran through at least 40 editions, many of which were copied without explicit author consent. It was published in Dublin from 1748, and in America from 1805.
Hasty pudding is a pudding or porridge of grains cooked in milk or water. In the United States, it often refers specifically to a version made primarily with ground ("Indian") corn, and it is mentioned in the lyrics of "Yankee Doodle", a traditional American song of the 18th century.
Hannah Glasse was an English cookery writer of the 18th century. Her first cookery book, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, published in 1747, became the best-selling recipe book that century. It was reprinted within its first year of publication, appeared in 20 editions in the 18th century, and continued to be published until well into the 19th century. She later wrote The Servants' Directory (1760) and The Compleat Confectioner, which was probably published in 1760; neither book was as commercially successful as her first.
Junket is a milk-based dessert with a jelly texture, made with sweetened milk and rennet, the digestive enzyme that curdles milk. It is usually set in a mould and served cold.
A floating island or île flottante is a dessert consisting of meringue floating on crème anglaise. The meringue used is baked in a bain-marie. It may be served at room temperature or chilled.
An apple dumpling is a baked or boiled pastry-wrapped apple. To prepare apple dumplings, apples are peeled, cored and sometimes quartered and placed on a portion of dough. The hole from the core may be filled with cinnamon, butter and sugar and sometimes dried fruit such as raisins, sultanas, or currants. The dough is folded over the apples and sealed. Sometimes a spiced sauce is poured over the dumplings which are then baked until tender; the sugar and butter create a sweet sauce. Apple dumplings can be served hot, cold, or room temperature for breakfast, dessert, or as a main dish.
Milk punch is a milk-based brandy or bourbon beverage. It consists of milk, the spirit, sugar, and vanilla extract. It is served cold and usually has nutmeg sprinkled on top. Milk punch may be clarified through the addition of ingredients which cause the milk to curdle, so that the solids contributing to the beverage's opacity may be strained out.
The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened, commonly known as The Closet Opened, is an English cookery book first printed in 1669. The title page states that it is based upon the writings of Sir Kenelm Digby, "published by his son's consent".
Sponge cake is a light cake made with eggs, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.
Almond pudding is a milk pudding or custard thickened with ground almonds and sometimes flavored with almond extract. There are versions of almond pudding found in the Arab cuisines of the Middle East, and variations of this dish are found in American, European, Turkish, Persian, Indian, Chinese, and other world cuisines.
A History of English Food is a 2011 non-fiction book, a history of English cuisine arranged by period from the Middle Ages to the end of the twentieth century, written by the celebrity cook Clarissa Dickson Wright and published in London by Random House. Each period is treated in turn with a chapter. The text combines history, recipes, and anecdotes, and is illustrated with 32 pages of colour plates.
