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Dessert – The Sweet Treat – Custards and Puddings

The strict culinary definition of custard is eggs and milk mixed and baked, or stirred over gentle heat until thickened. Elegant, easy, and creamy, custards and puddings are the ultimate make-ahead dessert. Custards are milk or cream-based and are typically firmer than pudding. Creamy custards and puddings typically include a thickened dairy base. The thickener used determines whether it’s a custard or a pudding. Generally, custards are cooked and thickened with eggs. Crème brûlée and flan are both baked custards. Puddings are thickened with starches. Two common types of puddings are rice and tapioca. The main difference between custards and puddings lies in the use of eggs. Pudding involves cornstarch or flour as a thickener, while custard uses eggs as its secret weapon. 

Custards and Puddings Recipes >>

Dessert – The Sweet Treat – Frozen Desserts

Frozen desserts are technically a dessert made by freezing flavored liquids, semi-solids and sometimes even solids, or purées added and the varieties are seemingly endless. They may be based on flavored water, on fruit purées, on milk and cream, on custard, on mousse, and others. It is sometimes sold as ice-cream in South Asia and other countries. Ice cream consists of cream slowly stirred in a churn to freeze it to a creamy consistency. Gelato uses a milk base instead of cream and has less air mixed into it than ice cream. Frozen custard uses a cooked base of egg yolks. For a dairy-free dessert, try a sorbet, which is made from churned fruit purees. Frozen yogurt uses yogurt rather than the heavier cream base of ice cream.

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Dessert – The Sweet Treat – Cakes

Cake is a form of sweet food made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients, that is usually baked.

The most commonly used cake ingredients include flour, sugar, eggs, butter or oil or margarine, a liquid, and leavening agents, such as baking soda or baking powder. Common additional ingredients and flavorings include dried, candied, or fresh fruit, nuts, cocoa, and extracts such as vanilla, with numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients. Cakes can also be filled with fruit preserves, nuts or dessert sauces, iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders, or candied fruit.

Most traditional cakes call for a standard mix of ingredients: sugar, butter, leavening, and gluten (flour). Keeping a few basic ingredients on hand, and using them correctly, will ensure that your cakes are perfect every time. Some varieties of cake are widely available in the form of cake mixes, wherein some of the ingredients (usually flour, sugar, flavoring, baking powder, and sometimes some form of fat) are premixed, and the cook needs add only a few extra ingredients, usually eggs, water, and sometimes vegetable oil or butter.

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Dessert – The Sweet Treat – Cookies

A cookie is a baked or cooked food that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar and some type of oil or fat. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.

Cookies originated as small cakes. The name cookie, comes from the Dutch word “koekje” meaning “little cake,” according to the Nibble’s website. They were spoonfuls of cake batter cooked to test the oven temperature before ovens had thermometers. Cookies vary in size, shape and texture, but many share variations of basic ingredients such as sweetener, eggs, butter or shortening and flour. Varieties include chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, gingersnaps, tender shortbread, chewy oatmeal cookies, crispy meringues and cake-like bar cookies.

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Dessert – The Sweet Treat – Pies

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that completely contains a filling of various sweet or savory ingredients.

Pies are defined by their crusts. A filled pie (also single-crust or bottom-crust), has pastry lining the baking dish, and the filling is placed on top of the pastry but left open. A top-crust pie has the filling in the bottom of the dish and is covered with a pastry or other covering before baking. A two-crust pie has the filling completely enclosed in the pastry shell. Shortcrust pastry is a typical kind of pastry used for pie crusts, but many things can be used, including baking powder biscuits, mashed potatoes, and crumbs.

The simplest form of pie involves a crust with a filling. The crust can be on the top and bottom or just the bottom, made from pastry or graham cracker crumbs. Pie fillings include custards, puddings, nuts and fruits. Chocolate cream pie, lemon meringue pie, shoo-fly pie, pecan pie, apple pie and tarts are just some pie variations. Tarts use a baking pan with straight sides and don’t have a top crust.

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Dessert – The Sweet Treat – Chocolates and Candies

Chocolate is a usually sweet, brown food preparation of roasted and ground cacao seeds that is made in the form of a liquid, paste, or in a block, or used as a flavoring ingredient in other foods.

Baking chocolate, also called bitter chocolate, contains cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions, without any added sugar. Powdered baking cocoa, which contains more fiber than it contains cocoa butter, can be processed with alkali to produce dutch cocoa. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, a combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter or added vegetable oils, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, but no cocoa solids.

Chocolates and candy involve the crystallization of sugar. The size of the sugar crystals determines the texture of the candy. Rock candy has large sugar crystals and a crunchy texture, but fudge contains small sugar crystals, giving it a smooth taste. Candy and chocolate desserts include fudge, caramel, lollipops, taffy, marshmallows, fondant, pralines and cotton candy.

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Dessert – The Sweet Treat – Pastries

Pastry is a dough of flour, water and shortening that may be savory 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.

Pastry is differentiated from bread by having a higher fat content, which contributes to a flaky or crumbly texture. A good pastry is light and airy and fatty, but firm enough to support the filling weight.

The same flaky pastry used to make pie crusts is applied to other desserts such as cream puffs, baklava, eclairs, Danish pastries and palmiers. Profiteroles consist of an unleavened dough with a high amount of fat. During preparation, the pastry dough is handled lightly to keep the finished pastry light and airy in texture.

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White chocolate is Not chocolate

White chocolate isn’t actually chocolate. Despite its name, white chocolate doesn’t actually contain any real chocolate components. According to Bon Appetit, the item is made up of a blend of sugar, milk products, vanilla, lecithin, and cocoa butter — no chocolate solids.

Popsicle Invented by Accident

An 11-year-old invented the Popsicle by accident. In 1905 11-year-old Frank Epperson left a mixture of soda and water in a cup outside overnight. His mixture froze and he ate his newfound treat.

The Red Food Dye Used in Skittles is Made From Boiled Beetles

Carmine, also known as carminic acid, is a common red food dye that can be found in Skittles, maraschino cherries, raspberry and strawberry-flavored junk food, and even lipstick.

Carminic acid also happens to be made from the crushed carcasses of a beetle known as the Dactylopius coccus.

Fruit Snacks

Fruit snacks and cars are coated in the same type of wax. Did you ever wonder how gummy candies get that glossy sheen? They’re coated with carnauba wax, the same stuff that is used on cars to make them shiny. 

Potatoes can Absorb and Reflect Wi-fi Signals

When Boeing wanted to test out their wireless signal on new planes in 2012, they placed giant piles of potatoes on seats. Because of their high water content and chemical makeup, potatoes absorb and reflect radio and wireless signals just like humans do.

Bananas Are Technically Berries

Bananas — along with cucumbers and kiwis — are classed as berries, whereas strawberries, blackberries and raspberries are not.

To be considered a berry in the botanical sense, the fruit must come from one flower with one ovary and typically have several seeds, Stanford Magazine explains. Raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries don’t count because they come from a single flower with more than one ovary.

Apple Pie is Not American

“As American as apple pie” isn’t actually very American. Pie was invented in Medieval England, while the modern recipe for apple pie with a lattice crust was created and perfected by the Dutch.