Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course usually consists of sweet foods, such as confections, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine or liqueur. In some parts of the world, such as much of central and western Africa, and most parts of China and India, there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
New England cuisine is an American cuisine which originated in the New England region of the United States, and traces its roots to English cuisine. It is characterized by extensive use of seafood and dairy products, which results from its historical reliance on its seaports and fishing industry, as well as extensive dairy farming in inland regions. Many of New England's earliest Puritan settlers were from eastern England, where baking foods was more common than frying, as was the tradition elsewhere.
Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from dairy milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and any spice, such as cocoa or vanilla. It can also be made by whisking a flavored cream base and liquid Nitrogen together. Colorings are usually added, in addition to stabilizers. The mixture is stirred to incorporate air spaces and cooled below the freezing point of water to prevent detectable ice crystals from forming. The result is a smooth, semi-solid foam that is solid at very low temperatures. It becomes more malleable as its temperature increases.
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.
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.
Pastry is a dough of flour, water and shortening that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. The word "pastries" suggests many kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder, and eggs. Small tarts and other sweet baked products are called pastries. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
Condensed milk is cow's milk from which water has been removed. It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of sweetened condensed milk (SCM), to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condensed milk" are often used interchangeably today. Sweetened condensed milk is a very thick, sweet product, which when canned can last for years without refrigeration if not opened. The product is used in numerous dessert dishes in many countries.
Gelato is a popular frozen dessert of Italian origin. It is generally made with a base of 3.25% milk and sugar. It is generally lower in fat than other styles of frozen desserts. Gelato typically contains 70% less air and more flavouring than other kinds of frozen desserts, giving it a density and richness that distinguishes it from other ice creams.
A custard pie is any type of uncooked custard mixture added to an uncooked or partially cooked crust and baked together. In North America, custard pie commonly refers to a plain mixture of milk, eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and sometimes nutmeg combined with a pie crust. It is distinctly different from a cream pie, which contains cooked custard poured into a cooled, precooked crust. In the United Kingdom, the comical or political act of pieing is conventionally done with a "custard pie". Some common custard pies include pumpkin pie, lemon and buttermilk chess pie, coconut cream pie, and buko pie. True custard is defined as a liquid thickened with eggs. Due to the often large number of whole eggs in custard pie it is a very rich pie.
Dulce de leche is a confection from Latin America prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk to create a substance that derives its flavour and colour from non-enzymatic browning. Dulce de leche is Spanish for "candy [made] of milk", other regional names in Spanish include manjar (delicacy), arequipe and cajeta.
Eggnog, also spelled egg nog or egg-nog, and historically also known as milk punch or egg milk punch, is a rich, chilled, sweetened, dairy-based beverage. It is traditionally made with milk, cream, sugar, whipped egg whites, and egg yolks. In some contexts, distilled spirits such as brandy, rum, whisky or bourbon are added to the drink.
Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk and other ingredients such as cinnamon, vanilla and raisins.
Snow cones are a variation of shaved ice or ground-up ice desserts commonly served in paper cones or foam cups. Although if it is in a cup, it is commonly referred to as a 'snowball'. The dessert consists of ice shavings that are topped with flavored sugar syrup.
Panna cotta is an Italian dessert of sweetened cream thickened with gelatin and molded. The cream may be aromatized with coffee, vanilla, or other flavorings.
A cream pie is a type of pie filled with a rich custard or pudding that is made from milk, cream, sugar, wheat flour, and eggs. It comes in many forms, including vanilla, lemon, lime, peanut butter, banana, coconut, and chocolate. One feature of most cream pies is a whipped cream topping. The custard filling is related to crème patissière, a key component of French cakes and tarts. It is a one-crust pie, where the crust covers the bottoms and sides but not the top. The crust may be a standard pie crust made with crumbled cookies or a graham cracker crust for savory pies.
A floating island is a dessert consisting of meringue floating on crème anglaise. The meringue is prepared from whipped egg whites, sugar, and vanilla extract and baked in a bain-marie. The crème anglaise is prepared with the egg yolks, vanilla, and hot milk, briefly cooked.
Buko pie, sometimes anglicized as coconut pie, is a traditional Filipino baked young-coconut (malauhog) custard pie. It is considered a specialty in the city of Los Baños, Laguna located on the island of Luzon.
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.
