Puddings
What is a Pudding ?
A pudding is the dessert course of a meal (`pud' is used informally). In Britain, we also use the words 'dessert, 'sweet'' and 'afters'.

There are hundreds of variations of sweet puddings in England, but each pudding begins with the same basic ingredients of milk, sugar, eggs, flour and butter and many involve fresh fruit such as raspberries or strawberries, custard, cream, and cakes.The more traditional and well known home-made puddings are apple or rhubarb crumble, bread and butter pudding, spotted dick and trifle. The traditional accompaniment is custard, known as crème anglaise (English sauce) to the French. The dishes are simple and traditional, with recipes passed on from generation to generation.
Favourite Puddings include:

○Spotted Dick (Also called Spotted Dog)
Spotted dick is a steamed suet pudding containing dried fruit (usually currants), commonly served with either custard or butter and brown sugar

○Trifle
Made with layers of sponge cake altternate with custard, jam or fruit and Whipped Cream. Sometimes alcohol-soaked sponge cake is used.

○Apple Crumble
Often served with thick cream, ice cream or custard.

○Hasty Pudding
A simple and quick (thus the name) steamed pudding of milk, flour, butter, eggs, and cinnamon.

○Bakewell pudding - also called Bakewell Tart.

○Custard
A thick, rich, sweet mixture made by gently cooking together egg yolks, sugar, milk or cream, and sometimes other flavorings. Most people today use a yellow powder mixed with milk, water and sugar. Custard can be served as a hot sauce, poured over adessert, or as a cold layer in, for example, a trifle. When it is cold, it 'sets' and becomes firm.

○Bread and butter pudding - old English favourite (see image)

○Semolina Pudding
A smooth, creamy puddmade of milk, eggs, flavouring and sugaring. Semolina is cooked slowly in milk, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with vanilla and sometimes enriched with egg. Semolina pudding can be served with raisins, currants or sultanas stirred in or with a dollop of jam.

○Roly-poly
A pudding made of jam or fruit rolled up in pastry dough and baked or steamed until soft.

○Treacle pudding
A steamed pudding with a syrup topping.

○Jelly and Ice Cream
A favourite party food for children.

Cakes
○Lardy Cake

○The Victoria Sponge - Named after Queen Victoria

○Parkin
A spicey cake combining oatmeal and ginger. Traditionally enjoyed around Guy Fawkes Night (November 5)

○Simnel Cake
A traditional cake for Easter and Mothering Sunday (Mothers' Day)

The Simnel cake is associated with Easter today, but was originally made for Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent.

Ingredients:
300g/10oz self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
110g/4oz butter or margarine
110g/4oz brown sugar
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
350g/12oz mixed dry fruit
2 eggs
approx. 100 ml milk to mix
700g Marzipan
2 tablespoons of icing sugar for decoration

Method
1. Rub the margarine into the flour.

2. Add all the dry ingredients i.e. sugar, spice and dried fruit. Stir well.

3. Add golden syrup and eggs.

4. Add enough milk to form a soft dropping consistency

5. Stir well to combine all the ingredients.

6. Grease a deep round 8 inch tin

7. Place half the mixture in the tin.

8. Roll out one third of the marzipan.

9. Place the marzipan on top of the mixture.

10. Add the rest of the mixture on top.

11. Smooth down the surface of the mixture.

12. Bake in the centre of the oven for 1-1 1/4 hours or until a thin metal skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out without a trace of stickiness.









13. Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes.

14. Loosen the cake from the tin gently with a knife.

15. Turn out onto a wire rack to allow to cool thoroughly.

16. Roll out another third of the marzipan.

17. Mix the icing sugar with a little cold water to form a paste. Pour some on the cake.

18. Place the rolled marzipan on top.

19. Use the back of a fork around the edge to make a pattern.

20. With the last of the mazipan make 11 equal sized balls. Dip each ball into the icing sugar mixture.

21. Arrange the 11 balls around the outside of the cake.

22. Pour some icing sugar mixture in the centre of the cake.

23. Add decorations of your choice.

24. The cake is now finished.

Meals and Meal Times

Some people have their biggest meal in the middle of the day and some have it in the evening, but most people today have a small mid-day meal - usually sandwiches, and perhaps some crisps and some fruit.

We have three main meals a day:
Breakfast - between 7:00 and 9:00,
Lunch - between 12:00 and 1:30 p.m.
Dinner (sometimes called Supper) - The main meal. Eaten anytime between 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. (Evening meal)

Traditionally, and for some people still, the meals are called:
Breakfast - between 7:00 and 9:00,
Dinner (The main meal) - between 12:00 and 1:30 p.m.
Tea - anywhere from 5:30 at night to 6:30 p.m.

On Sundays the main meal of the day is often eaten at midday instead of in the evening. This meal usually is a Roast Dinner consisting of a roast meat, yorkshire pudding and two or three kinds of vegetables.

BREAKFAST

What is a typical English Breakfast?
Most people around the world seem to think a typical English breakfast consists of eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, mushrooms and baked beans all washed down with a cup of coffee. Now-a-days, however, a typical English breakfast is more likely to be a bowl of cereals, a slice of toast, orange juice and a cup of coffee.
Many people, especially children, in England will eat a bowl of cereal. They are made with different grains such as corn, wheat, oats etc.
In the winter many people will eat "porridge" or boiled oats.

What is the traditional English Breakfast?
The traditional English breakfast consists of eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, baked beans and mushrooms. Even though not many people will eat this for breakfast today, it is always served in hotels and guest houses around Britain.
The traditional English breakfast is called the 'Full English' and sometimes referred to as 'The Full English Fry-up'.

LUNCH

What is a typical British lunch?
Many children at school and adults at work will have a 'packed lunch'. This typically consists of a sandwich, a packet of crisps, a piece of fruit and a drink. The 'packed lunch' is kept in a plastic container.
Sandwiches are also known as a 'butty' or 'sarnie' in some parts of the UK.

DINNER

The evening meal is usually called 'tea', 'dinner' or 'supper'.

What is a traditional British Dinner?
A typical British meal for dinner is "meat and two veg". We put hot brown gravy, (traditionally made from the juices of the roast meat, but more often today from a packet!) on the meat and usually the vegetables. One of the vegetables is almost always potatoes.

What is a typical British Dinner like today?
The traditional meal is rarely eaten nowadays, apart from on Sundays. A recent survey found that most people in Britain eat curry! Rice or pasta dishes are now favoured as the 'British Dinner'.Vegetables grown in England, like potatoes, carrots, peas, cabbages and onions, are still very popular.

The Sunday Roast Dinner

Sunday lunch time is a typical time to eat the traditional Sunday Roast.

Traditionally it consists of roast meat, (cooked in the oven for about two hours), two different kinds of vegetables and potatoes with a Yorkshire pudding. The most common joints are beef, lamb or pork; chicken is also popular.

Typical Traditional British Dishes

○Yorkshire Pudding

This dish is not usually eaten as a dessert like other puddings but instead as part of the main course or at a starter. Yorkshire pudding, made from flour, eggs and milk, is a sort of batter baked in the oven and usually moistened with gravy.

○Roast Meats ( cooked in the oven for about two hours)

Typical meats for roasting are joints of beef, pork, lamb or a whole chicken. More rarely duck, goose, gammon, turkey or game are eaten.

○Fish and chips

Fish (cod, haddock, huss, plaice) deep fried in flour batter with chips (fried potatoes) dressed in malt vinegar. This is England's traditional take-away food or as US would say "to go". Fish and chips are not normally home cooked but bought at a fish and chip shop ("chippie" ) to eat on premises or as a "take away"

○Pie and Mash with parsley liquor

Traditional East End London meal. The original pies were made with eels because at the time eels were a cheaper product than beef. About fifty years ago, mince beef pies replaced the eels and have now become the traditional pie and mash that people know.
The traditional pie and mash doesn't come without its famous sauce known as liquor which is a curious shade of green and definitely non-alcoholic. The liquor tastes much nicer than it looks (it's bright green!).
Jellied eels are also an East End delicacy often sold with pie and mash

○Vegetables

○Bacon Roly-Poly (made with a suet pastry)
○Cumberland sausage

Breakfast is usually the first meal of the day. Breakfast foods  often include a carbohydrate such as grains, fruit and/or vegetable, protein, dairy, and beverage. Coffee, tea, juice, cereal, pancakes, sausages, bacon, loaf cakes, fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs, baked beans, muffins, crumpets and toast with butter and/or jam are common examples of breakfast foods, though a large range of preparations and ingredients are associated with breakfast globally.

In England, whereas "dinner", when used for the evening meal, is fairly formal, "supper" is used to describe a less formal, simpler family meal. In some areas of the United Kingdom, "supper" is used to describe an evening meal when dinner has been eaten around noon. In some northern British and Australian homes, as in New Zealand and Ireland, "tea" is used for the evening meal. In parts of the United Kingdom, supper is a term for a snack eaten after the evening meal and before bed, usually consisting of a warm, milky drink and British biscuits or cereal, but can include sandwiches.

Traditionally, snacks were prepared from ingredients commonly available in the home. Often leftovers, sandwiches made from cold cuts, nuts, fruit, and the like were used as snacks. The Dagwood sandwich was originally the humorous result of a cartoon character's desire for large snacks. Beverages, such as coffee, are not generally considered snacks though they may be eaten between meals like a snack, or along with snack foods. A beverage may be considered a snack if it possesses a substantive food item (e.g., strawberries, bananas, kiwis) that has been blended to create a smoothie.