Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
posedly the invention of people in a hurry to avoid the bailiff, is made from stale bread
with dried fruit and milk. Queen of puddings is a breadcrumb pudding topped with warm
jam, meringue, and cream. Treacle pudding is a popular steamed pudding whose “sponge”
mixture combines flour, suet (animal fat), butter, sugar, and milk. Christmas pudding (also
called plum pudding) is a dense mixture with dried and candied fruit served with brandy
butter or hard sauce. Sticky toffee pudding is a moist cake made with dates, heated and
drizzled with toffee sauce, and served with ice cream or cream. Banoffee pie is the deli-
cious (and better) British answer to banana cream pie.
British Chocolate
My chocoholic readers are enthusiastic about British chocolates. As with other
dairy products, chocolate seems richer and creamier here than it does in the US,
so even the basics like Mars, Kit Kat, and Twix have a different taste. Some fa-
vorites include Cadbury Gold bars (filled with liquid caramel), Cadbury Crunchie
bars, Nestle's Lion bars (layered wafers covered in caramel and chocolate), Cad-
bury's Boost bars (a shortcake biscuit with caramel in milk chocolate), Cadbury
Flake (crumbly folds of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate), Aero bars (with “aerated”
chocolate filling), and Galaxy chocolate bars (especially the ones with hazelnuts).
Thornton shops (in larger train stations) sell a box of sweets called the Continental
Assortment, which comes with a tasting guide. (The highlight is the mocha white-
chocolate truffle.) British M&Ms, called Smarties, are better than American ones.
Many Brits feel that the ultimate treat is a box of either Nestlé Quality Street or
Cadbury Roses—assortments of filled chocolates in colorful wrappers. At ice-cream
vans, look for the beloved traditional “99p”—a vanilla soft-serve cone with a small
Flake bar stuck right into the middle.
The English version of custard is a smooth, yellow liquid. Cream tops most
everything that custard does not. There's single cream for coffee. Double cream is really
thick. Whipped cream is familiar, and clotted cream is the consistency of whipped butter.
Fool is a dessert with sweetened pureed fruit (such as rhubarb, gooseberries, or black
currants) mixed with cream or custard and chilled. Elderflower is a popular flavoring for
sorbet.
Flapjacks here aren't pancakes, but are dense, sweet oatmeal cakes (a little like a cross
between a granola bar and a brownie). They come with toppings such as toffee and chocol-
ate.
