Shortcrust is a type of pastry often used for the base of a tart, quiche, pie, or flan. Shortcrust pastry can be used to make both sweet and savory pies such as apple pie, quiche, lemon meringue or chicken pie.
Pastry refers to a variety of doughs, as well as the sweet and savoury baked goods made from them. The dough may be accordingly called pastry dough for clarity. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit, nuts, fruit preserves, brown sugar, sweetened vegetables, or with thicker fillings based on eggs and dairy. Savoury pies may be filled with meat, eggs and cheese or a mixture of meat and vegetables.
An apple pie is a pie in which the principal filling is apples. Apple pie is often served with whipped cream, ice cream, custard or cheddar cheese. It is generally double-crusted, with pastry both above and below the filling; the upper crust may be solid or latticed. The bottom crust may be baked separately ("blind") to prevent it from getting soggy. Tarte Tatin is baked with the crust on top, but served with it on the bottom.
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 served chilled.
Key lime pie is an American dessert pie. It is made of Key lime juice, egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk. It may be served with no topping, with a meringue topping made from egg whites, or with whipped cream. Traditionally, Key Lime pie is made using a graham cracker crust. It may be made with or without baking in a pie crust or without crust. The dish is named after the small Key limes, which are more aromatic than the common Persian limes, and which have yellow juice. The filling in a Key lime pie is typically yellow because of the egg yolks.
Cobbler is a dessert consisting of a fruit filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a batter, biscuit, or dumpling before being baked. Cobbler is part of the cuisine of the United Kingdom and United States, and is similar to a crumble or a crisp. However, traditional cobbler differs from both of these by the presence of a leavening agent such as baking powder or baking soda. Cobblers made in this way can be viewed as a hybrid of pie and cake. Some cobbler recipes, especially in the American South, resemble a thick-crusted, deep-dish pie with both a top and bottom crust that lack leavening and are less cake-like.
Pecan pie is a pie of pecan nuts mixed with a filling of eggs, butter and sugar. Variations may include white or brown sugar, cane syrup, sugar syrup, molasses, maple syrup, or honey. It is commonly served at holiday meals in the United States and is considered a specialty of Southern U.S. origin. Most pecan pie recipes include salt and vanilla as flavorings. Pecan pie may be served with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or hard sauce.
Apple crisp is a dessert made with a streusel topping. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, and cinnamon. The earliest reference to apple crisp in print occurs in 1924. Other similar desserts include apple Brown Betty, apple cobbler, apple crumble, apple pan dowdy, apple pie, and Eve's pudding.
Manchester tart is a traditional English baked tart consisting of a shortcrust pastry shell spread with raspberry jam, covered with a custard filling and topped with flakes of coconut and a Maraschino cherry. A common variation has a layer of thinly-sliced bananas under the custard.
Custard tarts or flan pâtissier/parisien are a baked pastry consisting of an outer pastry crust filled with egg custard.
Fish pie, also known as fisherman's pie, is a traditional British dish.
A lemon tart is a dessert dish, a variety of tart. It has a pastry shell with a lemon flavored filling.
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 do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain.
Pie in American cuisine evolved over centuries from savory game pies. When sugar became more widely available women began making simple sweet fillings with a handful of basic ingredients. By the 1920s and 1930s there was growing consensus that cookbooks needed to be updated for the modern electric kitchen. New appliances, recipes and convenience food ingredients changed the way Americans made iconic dessert pies like key lime pie, coconut cream pie and banana cream pie.
Cumberland rum nicky is a sweet shortcrust pastry tart or pie, commonly filled with dates and stem ginger, flavoured with rum, and sweetened with brown sugar. Rum nickies are associated with the historic county of Cumberland in northwest England, and the ingredients used in their manufacture reflect the county's former significance as a major import and trading centre for products of the UK's Caribbean colonies. As with many traditional foodstuffs, the precise list of ingredients can vary between different cooks and recipes, with currants and cinnamon being common additions or substitutions.
