What are These British Dessert Delicacies? Quiz

Answer: sweet pudding of flour, breadcrumbs, dried fruit, suet, sugar and spices, milk and golden syrup.

This dessert is also called a clootie dumpling; it's a sweet pudding steamed in a cloot, meaning cloth, thus the name it acquired. The dried fruit that the recipe calls for are usually currants and sultanas (dried, seedless white grapes). All those ingredients are combined, and the milk helps them bind together. Clooties are somewhat like fruitcakes and indeed are popular around the holidays, and traditionally sometimes have prizes hidden inside them.

Answer: a semisweet cookie

They were called digestives back in the 19th century by sellers in order to convince buyers that these simple cookies would actually settle one's stomach. One 1829 advertisement in the "Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser" said that 'Digestive Biscuits' "have the good property of keeping the body in a regular state." Seven years later an 1836 ad praised 'Buss's Digestive Biscuits' for its medicinal benefits: 'the greatest amount of farinaceous nutriment that can possibly be concentrated into a biscuit'.

Answer: berries, meringue and whipped cream

The traditional Eton mess dessert is a mixture of strawberries or other berries, with meringue, and whipped cream. The first reference to it in print is from 1893. It is believed to have been created at Eton College as a treat to be served at the annual cricket match against the Harrow School. The meringue was not actually in the original recipe-it became an addition starting in the 1930s.

Answer: a cupcake

Also called British Butterfly cakes, a fairy cake is a simple flat-top cupcake with a layer of icing on top. They are a very traditional and popular item at children's birthday parties. Generally, fairy cakes are slightly smaller than cupcakes, and the icing that tops them is a lighter fare than the heavier buttercream frosting usually atop American cupcakes.

Answer: biscuit crumbs, marshmallows, and cherries are mixed into condensed milk

Fifteens are a tray bake dessert simply meaning they are baked in the oven on a large baking sheet. It's called Fifteens because originally the recipe called for 15 digestive biscuits, 15 marshmallows and 15 glacé cherries, mixed together with condensed milk and dried coconut shavings. All those ingredients, the cookies, marshmallows and cherries are chopped up into a crumble and then combined with the milk.

Answer: pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream

Why a British fool is called that isn't quite known, but it traditionally combines fresh, tart berries with homemade whipped cream. The fruit is only lightly sweetened but it is pureed and mashed and then folded in together with the whipped cream into a swirl. No cooking involved and only three ingredients, so it's a popular dessert to throw together quickly and without a lot of hassle.

Answer: currants squashed between oblong dough and baked

The Garibaldi biscuit is two thin, cooked layers of dough with currants between them, and a sweet glaze on top. Morbid nicknames include "squashed-fly", "dead-fly", "fly-sandwich" because of the appearance of the currants. This treat was first manufactured by the Bermondsey biscuit company when it was invented by Jonathan Dodgson Carr for Peek Freans in 1861.

They were called Garibaldi biscuits, after Giuseppe Garibaldi, the hero of the unification of Italy because when he visited Great Britain in 1854, he was famous due to his conquest of Sicily and Naples in 1860. Most likely, Peek Freans wanted to take advantage of his celebrity, so they associated his name with the biscuit to boost sales.

Answer: ice cream sundae with fruit, nuts chocolate, whipped cream

The knickerbocker glory is an ice cream sundae first became popular in the 1930s. Traditionally made with fresh fruit, topped with a fruit sauce on the ice cream, with all that fruitiness layered parfait-style in a tall glass and then gloriously topped with whipped cream. Let's toss in a wafer cookie on top while we're at it. That fruit sauce, also called a coulis is made from puréed fruit, which can be any kind of fruit, but many choose to make it from raspberries because of its tartness which plays interestingly with the creamy sweetness of the ice cream and provides a luxuriantly rich red brightness.

Answer: currants, suet, flour, served with custard sauce

What Americans would call a pudding the British would more likely call a custard. What the British would call a pudding can be sweet or savory-it is a dish boiled or steamed in something like a dish or even an animal intestine. Therefore, the earliest puddings were sausages.

But the spotted dick is a sweet pudding, - a steamed cake with currants and flavored with suet, or beef fat, rather than butter. The "spotted" refers to the currants that dot the cake. The "dick" part is more of a puzzle (but when isn't it?), and some think it could be a pronunciation of "pudding" aka "puddick".

The sweetness comes from a custard sauce usually served with it.

Answer: sponge cake with fruited gelatin, custard, whipped cream

First created about 400 years ago, A trifle has sponge ladyfinger fingers or sometimes pound cake, that is soaked in an alcohol like sherry or brandy or sweet wine if it's a dessert for adults, but if for kids, then skip the booze! On top of the sponge cake is flavored gelatin or sometimes out and out jelly, and the next layer in the structure is a creamy custard. Then top the whole delicious pile with a heap of whipped cream.