Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as candy, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. In some parts of the world there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
Bread pudding is a bread-based dessert popular in many countries' cuisines. It is made with stale bread and milk or cream, generally containing eggs, a form of fat such as oil, butter or suet and, depending on whether the pudding is sweet or savory, a variety of other ingredients. Sweet bread puddings may use sugar, syrup, honey, dried fruit, nuts, as well as spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, or vanilla. The bread is soaked in the liquids, mixed with the other ingredients, and baked.
Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.
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.
A chocolate chip cookie is a drop cookie that features chocolate chips or chocolate morsels as its distinguishing ingredient. Chocolate chip cookies originated in the United States in 1938, when Ruth Graves Wakefield chopped up a Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bar and added the chopped chocolate to a cookie recipe.
Pound cake is a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Pound cakes are generally baked in either a loaf pan or a Bundt mold. They are sometimes served either dusted with powdered sugar, lightly glazed, or with a coat of icing.
Cheesecake is a sweet 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.
Devil's food cake is a moist, rich chocolate layer cake. It is considered a counterpart to the white or yellow angel food cake. Because of differing recipes and changing ingredient availability over the 20th century, it is difficult to precisely qualify what distinguishes devil's food from the more standard chocolate cake. However, it traditionally has more chocolate than a regular chocolate cake, making it darker in colour and with a heavier texture. The cake is usually paired with a rich chocolate frosting.
Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk and other ingredients such as cinnamon, vanilla and raisins.
Ukrainian cuisine is the collection of the various cooking traditions of the people of Ukraine, one of the largest and most populous European countries. It is heavily influenced by the rich dark soil (chernozem) from which its ingredients come, and often involves many components. Traditional Ukrainian dishes often experience a complex heating process – "at first they are fried or boiled, and then stewed or baked. This is the most distinctive feature of Ukrainian cuisine".
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.
Buttercream, also referred to as butter icing or butter frosting, is used for either filling, coating or decorating cakes. The main ingredients are butter and some type of sugar.
Jumbles are simple butter cookies made with a basic recipe of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. They can be flavored with vanilla, anise, or caraway seed used for flavoring, or other flavoring can be used like almond. They were formerly often made in the form of rings or rolls.
A rock cake, also called a rock bun, is a small cake with a rough surface resembling a rock. They were promoted by the British Ministry of Food during the Second World War since they require fewer eggs and less sugar than ordinary cakes, an important savings in a time of strict rationing. Traditional recipes bulked them with oatmeal, which was more readily available than white flour.
A great variety of cassava-based dishes are consumed in the regions where cassava is cultivated, and the ingredient is included many national or ethnic specialities.
Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, 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 of the 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 recognized 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.
Applesauce cake is a dessert cake prepared using apple sauce, flour and sugar as primary ingredients. Various spices are typically used, and it tends to be a moist cake. Several additional ingredients may also be used in its preparation, and it is sometimes prepared and served as a coffee cake. The cake dates back to early colonial times in the United States. National Applesauce Cake Day occurs annually on June 6 in the U.S.
Raisin cake is a type of cake that is prepared using raisins as a main ingredient. Additional ingredients are sometimes used, such as chocolate and rum. Raisin cake dates back to at least the time of the reign of David, circa 1010–970 BCE. Boiled raisin cake is prepared by boiling various ingredients and then baking the mix in an oven. It dates back to at least the time of the American Civil War (1861–1865).
Pie in American cuisine has roots in English cuisine and has evolved over centuries to adapt to American cultural tastes and ingredients. The creation of flaky pie crust shortened with lard is credited to American innovation.
