Why are dessserts so often awful?

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  • www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/new-york-cheesecake

    I'll grant you it's not a lot of flour. In terms of proximity I wonder if the cheesecake is closer to being a sweet quiche than anything else.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Mince pies with no top crust? What new devilry is this?
  • Mince pies with no top crust? What new devilry is this?
    Quite! They would be mince tarts.
  • In the UK I think a single-crusted confection would usually be described as a tart.

    Every single lemon meringue pie I have eaten in the UK has been described as "pie", and has consisted of a pastry or biscuit base, lemon filling, and meringue top. Mince pies are often made without a top crust.

    I also find the idea of a cheesecake made with flour a little odd.
    There is a recurring theme across several subjects regarding pond "differences"
    THIS is how it is here, THAT is how it is there.

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  • Mince pies with no top crust? What new devilry is this?

    Pastry base, mincemeat, dusting of icing sugar. Preferred in my household because Mrs C is a philistine who likes under-done soggy pastry. Also gives a better ratio of mincemeat to pastry.
  • In the UK pies are small (in diameter) and may be covered or open; tarts are large and may be covered or open.

    This isn't right. A big deep dish lined with pastry, covered with pastry, filled with apple, and served with custard, will IME always be called an apple pie, and not called an apple tart. An individual-sized pastry case filled with jam and baked is a jam tart, and not a jam pie.
  • There is no always in language use. Or it is scarce enough to not affect the sale of dentures to chickens.
  • I always thought that a tart had to have a pastry bottom, while a pie had to have a pastry top (but may or may not also have a pastry bottom). Both can be large or small. Sometimes apple pie (pastry top and bottom) is called apple tart.

    (Pie can also be without pastry completely, such as shepherd's pie, cottage pie, fish pie, which all feature mashed potato)
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    An apple pie has a top and an apple tart doesn't. There is room for debate as to whether a lattice that leaves filling exposed counts as a top.
    I think tart never has a meat filling, but that may just be because you wouldn't want to cook meat in an open pastry case in the oven.

  • (Pie can also be without pastry completely, such as shepherd's pie, cottage pie, fish pie, which all feature mashed potato)

    You remind me of the "pies" that I was fed as an undergraduate, which were basically a dollop of stew, with a square of puff pastry somewhere nearby on the plate.

    For the avoidance of doubt, that's not a pie, it's an abomination.
  • Pies can be family sized in a deep dish, not just small, like the ones you get in a chippy. Or, I gather, at a football stadium.
  • Mr Dragon and I have a long running dispute about bread products, specifically rolls, and the nomenclature thereof, owing to coming from separate parts of the country.
  • To add to the confusion, I think crust without base or sides is “cobbler” ?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    This U.K. person expects a generic pie to have a top crust (and ideally IMO a bottom crust). I expect tarts to be open i.e without a top crust - although there maybe a pastry in the form of lattice, for example.

    There are exceptions e.g. a custard pie which is open, and variations e.g. a lemon meringue pie where meringue replaces the top crust. Mince pies are usually closed wholly or partially, jam tarts are usually open.

    Other exceptions may be borrowed from elsewhere.
  • This thread has definitely taken an interesting turn! It's the pastry equivalent of the Americans and Brits speak a separate language thread.
  • Pendragon wrote: »
    Mr Dragon and I have a long running dispute about bread products, specifically rolls, and the nomenclature thereof, owing to coming from separate parts of the country.

    Baps, buns, barm cakes, cobs,....
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited October 2020
    Farls, butteries, bloomers, pan, plain...
  • AmosAmos Shipmate
    It's when the industry and the culture speak different languages that desserts become awful. I don't give a flying fart in a rolling doughnut what terms are used by industrial dessert makers for their products, and resent their attempt to standardise the language people use. Don't get me started on the verb 'bake' used as a noun, for which I blame Paul Hollywood.
  • Amos wrote: »
    Don't get me started on the verb 'bake' used as a noun, for which I blame Paul Hollywood.

    "Tray bake" has been in use for a long time.
  • AmosAmos Shipmate
    How long? Thirty years ago (which will be a long time for you, perhaps--and in this year of doom, a week is a long time), it was unknown. One referred to flapjacks or brownies, and, in the US, to what are still called 'bar cookies,' because they were cut into rectangles. Check out your cookbooks. I'd bet that 'tray-bake' is another industrial term.
  • Amos wrote: »
    How long? Thirty years ago (which will be a long time for you, perhaps--and in this year of doom, a week is a long time), it was unknown. One referred to flapjacks or brownies, and, in the US, to what are still called 'bar cookies,' because they were cut into rectangles. Check out your cookbooks. I'd bet that 'tray-bake' is another industrial term.

    I didn't hear it growing up but only when I moved north, where it was already well-established (~20 years ago). It generally refers to cake rather than brownies or flapjack (or tiffin, parkin or any other "special" item), the sort of thing you might make for a coffee morning when you expect a lot of people and don't want to faff making 50 fairy cakes. I think of it as a working class thing but that might just be due to where I encountered it. Certainly there's a resemblance to the sort of cake that might be served up in a school or works canteen and a crossover between domestic and institutional cooking among the overwhelmingly female staff is likely. I don't think I have it in my recipe books, but then St Delia of Norwich is about as middle class as you can get.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    edited October 2020
    I first IIRC came across the term nearly 30 years ago (in Banffshire as it happens) as a generic description for cakey/biscuity things made in a baking tray to be cut up for serving. It wasn’t in an industrial context.
  • A sadnesses of my life is that they don’t sell Parkin in the south.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    In a similar vein, I’ve just been looking to see if you can buy good butteries online.
  • A sadnesses of my life is that they don’t sell Parkin in the south.

    It is, however, easy to make.
  • Huffkins
    And I have an Australian recipes book full of the things one might call traybakes, so I will look up what they call them.
  • The noun "bake" for an event at which baked food is served (e.g. "clam bake") is 170 years old in the States.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Cobbler is a specific scone like topping. I used industry to mean the catering sector. Industrial sound like it is factory made.
  • Yes, I make beef cobbler with scone rounds, like I was taught in UK school cookery lessons in the 1980s.
  • Gill HGill H Shipmate
    A sadnesses of my life is that they don’t sell Parkin in the south.

    Morrisons do.

  • Go far enough south and there are no Morrison’s :(
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Hugal wrote: »
    Cobbler is a specific scone like topping.

    In the US a cobbler has fruit with a biscuit on either the top or bottom (US biscuit, not a cookie-like thing). I cook peaches, plums, or strawberries with a little sugar on the stove, put into a baking pan, drop biscuit dough on top, then little bits of butter, sprinkle with cinnamon, and bake for maybe 25-30 minutes at 350.
  • I have had lamb cobbler in pubs, which was stew with a flaky pastry top - no sides and no base.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    In the US a cobbler has fruit with a biscuit on either the top or bottom (US biscuit, not a cookie-like thing).
    Except when it doesn’t.

    In my part of the US, cobblers typically have a pastry crust rather than a biscuit crust, though cobblers with biscuit crusts can be encountered.

    And in my part of the US, it’s only called a cobbler if the crust is on the top. If the crust is on the bottom, it’s not considered a cobbler, and a crust on the bottom is never going to be made of biscuits.

  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    I have long felt that cheesecake was a waste of calories. I can think of so many better ways to take them on!
    That’s how I feel about most chocolate desserts, including chocolate cake.

    Yes, that’s me flying my freak flag.

  • Go far enough south and there are no Morrison’s :(

    Morrison's at Penzance seems to be the furthest south.
  • Gill HGill H Shipmate
    Go far enough south and there are no Morrison’s :(

    Morrison's at Penzance seems to be the furthest south.

    Plenty in London and here in South Wales.
  • I must be in a v specific desert then :(
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    I have long felt that cheesecake was a waste of calories. I can think of so many better ways to take them on!
    That’s how I feel about most chocolate desserts, including chocolate cake.

    Yes, that’s me flying my freak flag.
    There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a freak. Unfortunately, the word for a person not liking chocolate is abomination. Not sure whether to despise or pity
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Ruth wrote: »
    Hugal wrote: »
    Cobbler is a specific scone like topping.

    In the US a cobbler has fruit with a biscuit on either the top or bottom (US biscuit, not a cookie-like thing). I cook peaches, plums, or strawberries with a little sugar on the stove, put into a baking pan, drop biscuit dough on top, then little bits of butter, sprinkle with cinnamon, and bake for maybe 25-30 minutes at 350.

    Yes a US biscuit is similar to a UK scone which is often sweet but can also be savoury most often a cheese scone. A basic scone dough is neutral, like a basic pancake mix (not US breakfast pancakes).
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    I have long felt that cheesecake was a waste of calories. I can think of so many better ways to take them on!
    That’s how I feel about most chocolate desserts, including chocolate cake.

    Yes, that’s me flying my freak flag.
    There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a freak. Unfortunately, the word for a person not liking chocolate is abomination. Not sure whether to despise or pity
    As I tell my wife about peaches, which I truly dislike*, be grateful. It means more for you and everyone else.


    *I don’t exactly dislike chocolate, except for chocolate cake. There are a few chocolate things I like a lot. But generally, I just don’t find chocolate particularly appealing or tantalizing at all, much less something I crave, and I’d generally prefer something not chocolate. I’d much rather gather unnecessary calories through, say, caramel. Or, to bring it back around, cheesecake—meaning New York cheesecake.

    But not chocolate cheesecake.

  • Chocolate cheesecake is a disservice to both.
  • Pangolin GuerrePangolin Guerre Shipmate
    edited October 2020
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    I await the day that lilbuddha's heart explodes in a rage over cheesecake.
    Do you work at being stupid, or is it natural to you? There is not one drop of anger in my part of this discussion.

    Look at your preceding posts. QED.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I await the day that lilbuddha's heart explodes in a rage over cheesecake.
    Do you work at being stupid, or is it natural to you? There is not one drop of anger in my part of this discussion.

    Look at your preceding posts. QED.
    Projection. Without any context but the words, one is projecting the emotion behind them.
    Next you'll say I am actually calling Nick Tamen an abomination.
    Although, it is about chocolate, so...
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Chocolate cheesecake is a disservice to both.

    You mean you don’t enjoy instant mini cheesecakes (double choc chip cookies spread with plain philiadelia cheese) ?
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Chocolate cheesecake is a disservice to both.

    You mean you don’t enjoy instant mini cheesecakes (double choc chip cookies spread with plain philiadelia cheese) ?

    I've never eaten one and can't imagine enjoying it if I did, or ever calling it a cheesecake either way.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Chocolate cheesecake is a disservice to both.

    *sharpens pitchfork*
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Chocolate cheesecake is a disservice to both.

    *sharpens pitchfork*
    Dip it in saltwater to encourage rust before thrusting it towards yon monster.

    A proper chocolate cheesecake is a delicate balance, I'll grant, but done right it is a marvel.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Chocolate cheesecake is a disservice to both.

    *sharpens pitchfork*
    Dip it in saltwater to encourage rust before thrusting it towards yon monster.

    A proper chocolate cheesecake is a delicate balance, I'll grant, but done right it is a marvel.

    Delicate balance is not something that comes easily to me. I prefer to put cocoa in the cheesecake batter and then top the finished product with melted dark chocolate mixed with soured cream.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    @Nick Tamen I hadn't heard of pastry crust for cobbler. Is it basically a fruit pie with no bottom crust?

    For differently flavored cheesecake, I occasionally make pumpkin cheesecake.
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