Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, biscuit, ice cream and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly savory to create desserts. In some parts of the world, there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
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.
A crumble or crisp is typically a dessert with a crumbly topping consisting of flour, butter, sugar, and sometimes oats, baked over a fruit filling. Apple and rhubarb are two popular varieties. Savoury fillings such as meat, cheese or vegetables may alternatively be used. As a dessert, crumbles are traditionally served with custard, cream, or ice cream.
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.
Kuchen, the German word for cake, is used in other languages as the name for several different types of savory or sweet desserts, pastries, and gateaux. Most Kuchen have eggs, flour and sugar as common ingredients while also, but not always, including some fat. In the Germanosphere it is a common tradition to invite friends over to one's house or to a cafe between noon and evening to drink coffee and eat Kuchen.
Galette is a term used in French cuisine to designate various types of flat round or freeform crusty cakes, or, in the case of a Breton galette, a pancake made with buckwheat flour usually with a savoury filling. Of the cake type of galette, one notable variety is the galette des Rois eaten on the day of Epiphany. In French Canada the term galette is usually applied to pastries best described as large cookies.
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.
Kuih are bite-sized snack or dessert foods commonly found in Southeast Asia and China. It is a fairly broad term which may include items that would be called cakes, cookies, dumplings, pudding, biscuits, or pastries in English and are usually made from rice or glutinous rice. In China, where the term originates from, kueh or koé (粿) in the Min Nan languages refers to snacks which are typically made from rice but can occasionally be made from other grains such as wheat. The term kuih is widely used in Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore, kueh is used in Singapore and Indonesia, kue is used in Indonesia only, all three refer to sweet or savoury desserts.
A pot pie or potpie is a type of savory pie, usually a meat pie, covered by a pie crust consisting of flaky pastry. Pot pies may be made with a variety of fillings including poultry, beef, seafood or plant-based meat substitute fillings, and may also differ in the types of crust.
A charlotte is a type of bread pudding that can be served hot or cold. It is also referred to as an "icebox cake". Bread, sponge cake, crumbs or biscuits/cookies are used to line a mold, which is then filled with a fruit puree or custard. The baked pudding could then be sprinkled with powdered sugar and glazed with a salamander, a red-hot iron plate attached to a long handle, though modern recipes would likely use more practical tools to achieve a similar effect.
The Redwall Cookbook is a cookbook based on food from the Redwall series. It contains recipes mentioned in the books, from Deeper'n'Ever Pie and Summer Strawberry Fizz to Abbey Trifle and Great Hall Gooseberry Fool.
A crisp is a type of American dessert, usually consisting of a type of fruit, baked with a crispy topping, hence the name. The topping usually consists of butter, flour, oats, brown sugar and usually spices such as cinnamon and/or nutmeg. The most familiar type of crisp is apple crisp, where apples are baked with this topping. However, many other kinds of fruit can be used, such as cherries, pears, peaches, blueberries, etc.
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 British 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 British 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.
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.
