Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, 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.
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.
Meringue is a type of dessert or candy, of French origin, traditionally made from whipped egg whites and sugar, and occasionally an acidic ingredient such as lemon, vinegar, or cream of tartar. A binding agent such as salt, flour or gelatin may also be added to the eggs. The key to the formation of a good meringue is the formation of stiff peaks by denaturing the protein ovalbumin via mechanical shear.
Zabaione or zabaglione is an Italian dessert, or sometimes a beverage, made with egg yolks, sugar, and a sweet wine. Some versions of the recipe incorporate spirits such as cognac. The dessert version is a light custard, whipped to incorporate a large amount of air. Since the 1960s, in restaurants in areas of the United States with large Italian populations, zabaione is usually served with strawberries, blueberries, peaches, etc., in a champagne coupe. In France, it is called sabayon, while its Italian name is zabaione or zabaglione.
Ikoma is a city in the northwestern end of Nara Prefecture, kinki(Kansai) region, Japan. It was founded on November 1, 1971. As of September 1, 2023, the city has an estimated population of 117,259, with 51,478 households. It has a population density of 2,300 persons per km², and it has the third largest population in the prefecture. The total area is 53.18 km². The city is known as one of the most affluent affluent suburbs of the Greater Osaka Metropolian Area (Keihanshin), with a high rate of college graduates, professionals, and company directors amongst its residents. As a result, the city has developed as a satellite city of Osaka, with some 54% of its residents communiting across prefectural borders to Osaka. Kansai Science City is partially located in Ikoma, which is also home to the Nara Institute of Science and Technology. The city is also famous for chasen.
A crêpe or crepe is a very thin type of pancake. Crêpes are usually one of two varieties: sweet crêpes or savoury galettes. They are often served with a wide variety of fillings such as cheese, fruit, vegetables, meats, and a variety of spreads. Crêpes can also be flambéed, such as in crêpes Suzette.
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 refrigerated.
Lemon ice box pie is an icebox pie consisting of lemon juice, eggs, and condensed milk in a pie crust, frequently made of graham crackers and butter. It is a variant of key lime pie; in both, the citric acidity sets the egg yolks, with minimal baking. There are also no bake versions.
A mixer is a kitchen device that uses a gear-driven mechanism to rotate a set of "beaters" in a bowl containing the food or liquids to be prepared by mixing them.
The Kenwood Chef is a food mixer developed by Ken Wood in Britain. It is a single machine with a number of attachments that allow it to perform many functions. The Chef, based on the earlier A200, was introduced in 1950. Kenwood mixers, along with most other Kenwood products were originally manufactured in the UK by Kenwood Limited. The Chef Mixer was an instant success in the UK and is still Kenwood's top seller today.
Molten chocolate cake is a French dessert that consists of a chocolate cake with a liquid chocolate core. It is named for that molten center, and it is also known as mi-cuit au chocolat, chocolat coulant ("flowing"), chocolate lava cake, or simply lava cake. It should not be confused with fondant au chocolat, a recipe that contains little flour, but much chocolate and butter, hence melting on the palate.
Whipped cream is heavy cream, double cream, or other high-fat cream that is whipped by a whisk or mixer until it is light and fluffy and holds its shape. Cream aerated by the expansion of dissolved gas, forming a firm colloid, is also called whipped cream. It is often sweetened, typically with white sugar, and sometimes flavored with vanilla. Whipped cream is also called Chantilly cream or crème Chantilly.
An icebox cake is a dairy-based dessert made with cream, fruits, nuts, and wafers and set in the refrigerator. One particularly well-known version used to be printed on the back of boxes of thin and dark Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers.
Matcha is finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea leaves originating in China traditionally consumed in East Asia. It is mostly produced in Japan today. The green tea plants used for matcha are shade-grown for three to four weeks before harvest; the stems and veins are removed during processing. During shaded growth, the plant Camellia sinensis produces more theanine and caffeine. The powdered form of matcha is consumed differently from tea leaves or tea bags, as it is suspended in a liquid, typically water or milk.
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 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 recognised 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.
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.
Icebox pies are no-bake pies including ice cream pies, chiffon pies, and classic cream pies like key lime pie, lemon ice box pie, chocolate pudding pie, grasshopper pie and banana cream pie. The crust can be a crumb crust or blind baked pastry. They are associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States.
