Fallaid, in Scotland, was the dusting of meal left on the baking board, after a batch of bread has been baked. This dry meal was put on cakes when fired. An interesting custom used to prevail in the Outer Hebrides, where any meal remaining on the board would be made into a cake in the palm of the hand, and set to fire among the other and larger cakes. The custom has its origin in a superstition, that doing so keeps the store of meal from wasting. It also stems from the days when food was far less plentiful in Scotland and nothing could be wasted, except by the rich and extravagant.
This article incorporates text from "Dwelly's [Scottish] Gaelic Dictionary" (1911). (fallaid)
Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as confections, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. In some parts of the world, such as much of central and western Africa, and most parts of China, there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
Matzo, matzah, or matza is an unleavened flatbread that is part of Jewish cuisine and forms an integral element of the Passover festival, during which chametz is forbidden.
Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods are baked. Heat is gradually transferred "from the surface of cakes, cookies, and breads to their center. As heat travels through, it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods and more with a firm dry crust and a softer center". Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods simultaneously, or one after the other. Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit.
Cake is a form of sweet food made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients, that 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 that share features with other desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.
A biscuit is a flour-based baked food product. In most countries, particularly in the Commonwealth and Ireland, biscuits are typically hard, flat and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger or cinnamon. They can also be savoury and similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, biscotti and speculaas. In most of North America, nearly all hard sweet biscuits are called "cookies", while the term "biscuit" refers to a soft, leavened quick bread similar to a scone; see biscuit (bread).
A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who wish to consume the baked goods on the premises. Confectionery items are also made in most bakeries throughout the world.
Soda bread is a variety of quick bread traditionally made in a variety of cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate is used as a leavening agent instead of the traditional yeast. The ingredients of traditional soda bread are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The buttermilk in the dough contains lactic acid, which reacts with the baking soda to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other ingredients can be added, such as butter, egg, raisins, or nuts. An advantage of quick breads is their ability to be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time-consuming skilled labor and temperature control needed for traditional yeast breads.
A crumpet is a small griddle bread made from an unsweetened batter of water or milk, flour, and yeast, eaten in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a wheat-based food additive.
Challah is a special bread of Eastern European origin in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, usually braided and typically eaten on ceremonial occasions such as Shabbat and major Jewish holidays. Ritually-acceptable challah is made of dough from which a small portion has been set aside as an offering. Challah may also refer to the dough offering, and any bread that is made for Shabbat, or from which an offering is taken.
Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is the typical and traditional fare of the Pennsylvania Dutch. According to one writer, "If you had to make a short list of regions in the United States where regional food is actually consumed on a daily basis, the land of the Pennsylvania Dutch—in and around Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—would be at or near the top of that list," mainly because the area is a cultural enclave of Pennsylvania Dutch culture.
Bannock is a variety of flat quick bread or any large, round article baked or cooked from grain. A bannock is usually cut into sections before serving.
Johnnycakes are a cornmeal flatbread from American cuisine. An early American staple food, it is prepared on the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Jamaica. The food originates from the indigenous people of North America. It is still eaten in the West Indies, Dominican Republic, Saint Croix, The Bahamas, Colombia, and Bermuda as well as in the United States and Canada.
Black bun, sometimes known as Scotch bun, is a type of fruit cake completely covered with pastry. It is Scottish in origin, originally eaten on Twelfth Night but now enjoyed at Hogmanay. The cake mixture typically contains raisins, currants, almonds, citrus peel, allspice, ginger, cinnamon and black pepper. It had originally been introduced following the return of Mary, Queen of Scots from France, but its original use at Twelfth Night ended with the Scottish Reformation. It was subsequently used for first-footing over Hogmanay.
Bammy is a traditional Jamaican cassava flatbread descended from the simple flatbread eaten by the Arawaks, Jamaica's original inhabitants. Today, it is produced in many rural communities and sold in stores and by street vendors in Jamaica and abroad.
An oatcake is a type of flatbread similar to a cracker or biscuit, or in some versions takes the form of a pancake. They are prepared with oatmeal as the primary ingredient, and sometimes include plain or wholemeal flour as well. Oatcakes are cooked on a griddle or baked in an oven.
A cupcone, is a small cake generally proportioned to serve one person, specifically baked in a flat bottomed ice cream cone. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations, such as sprinkles, are common on cupcones. The consumable vessel design of a cupcone makes for a completely edible and self-contained snack food with no waste.
In the United States and Canada, a biscuit is a small piece of bread, which after baking usually has a somewhat firm, dry exterior and a soft, crumbly interior. They are usually made with baking powder or baking soda as a chemical leavening agent rather than yeast, and may be called baking powder biscuits to differentiate them from other types. Like other forms of bread, they are often served with butter or other condiments, flavored with other ingredients, or combined with other types of food to make sandwiches or other dishes.
Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. 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.
The old-fashioned doughnut is a variety of cake doughnut prepared in the shape of a ring with tapered edges around it. Cake doughnuts originated in the United States circa 1829. Primary ingredients in the old-fashioned doughnut include flour, sugar, eggs, sour cream or buttermilk and leavener. It is typically deep fried, may have a crunchier or crisper texture compared to other styles of cake doughnuts, and typically has cracks and pores on its surface. After being fried, it is glazed, dusted with sugar, or served plain.