International Puddings: A Euro 2020 Special Quiz

Answer: Marsala

Zabaglione, or sabayon in France, is a light dessert made with sweet Marsala wine, egg yolks and sugar, sometimes served with fruit. It can also be consumed as a drink. In Argentina and Uruguay, it has caught on as an ice cream flavour. Marsala wine is a type of fortified wine from the city of Marsala in Sicily, and carries the Protected Designation of Origin status, meaning that authentic Marsala wine can only come from there and nowhere else.

The sweet version of Marsala is also used in tiramisu and shortcake. Moscato d'Asti a sweet white wine, and spirits such as cognac can also be used to flavour zabaglione, while espresso is used for a non-alcoholic version.

Answer: Carac

Caracs are little pastry tarts similar to the English Bakewell tart, except the fondant icing is green instead of white, and the filling is made of chocolate instead of jam and almonds. Although they tend to be small, larger versions which can be cut into slices are also available.

The only part of the carac which is baked is the crust; once it has cooled, a chocolate ganache is added, followed by the green icing, with a little dot of ganache on top as a finishing touch. (And yes, there is an actual Swiss dish called cholera - it's a pie made with bacon, cheese, apples and various root vegetables!)

Answer: Chopped nuts

If you live in areas with a large Middle Eastern, Greek or Arab population, like I do, you'll probably find packs of baklava on sale in smaller shops, and some takeaways do it as well. One of Turkey's most famous dishes, baklava is made from layer upon layer of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts (usually pistachios, hazelnuts or walnuts, and sometimes almonds as well) and sweetened with honey or syrup.

It spread across Europe and Asia during the days of the Ottoman Empire. Baklava comes in many different forms, such as rolls or lozenges like the one here; the city of Gaziantep in Turkey even has it own signature baklava.

A variant called söbiyet is stuffed with cream.

Answer: Speckled bread

'Bara brith' means 'speckled bread', due to the mixed dried fruit the bread contains; currants and raisins being the most popular choices, and sometimes mixed peel too. When making bara brith, the fruit is soaked in tea before baking, and then kneaded into the dough (which is easier said than done - I had a go at making it once and it turned out rather hard, unfortunately).

It is cut into slices and buttered before serving. Welsh branches of the British supermarket chain Morrison's came under fire from the Welsh press for removing its bara brith from its shelves in 2006, due to a lack of sales. Welsh settlers introduced the bread to Argentina, where it is known as 'torta negra' ('black cake', not to be confused with the rich Colombian fruit cake of the same name).

Answer: Stroop waffle

If you're in the USA and you ask for a Belgian waffle, you'll most likely be served one like the one in the picture: a puffy Brussels waffle, with a rectangular shape and a crisp texture. It is usually made with a leavened mixture, using egg white or yeast as leavening, and served with icing sugar sprinkled on top.

The Liège waffle is smaller and has a rounded shape with crinkly edges, and is scattered with pieces of nib or 'pearl' sugar. The Flemish waffle, or 'gaufre à la flamande', is also round and usually consumed without a topping. ('Stroop waffle' is a corrupted version of the Dutch 'Stroopwafel', a wafer-like waffle consisting of two layers sandwiched together with a caramel filling.

It looks similar to the Flemish waffle.)

Answer: Austria

Denmark has Austria to thank for giving it the idea of the Danish pastry. The story goes that in 1850, Danish bakers went on strike, so bakery owners resorted to bringing in labour from abroad, including Austrian bakers who brought new recipes and baking techniques with them.

These caught on with the Danes and when the strike ended, they continued to use the recipes, tweaking them here and there. This is also the reason for one of the other names for the Danish pastry, 'Wienerbrød' ('Viennese bread'). Danish pastries are usually round and many, like the one in the picture, have a snail-like shape and are filled with fruit, such as raisins or apples, flavoured with cinnamon and decorated with icing.

Other Danish pastry fillings and toppings include chocolate, remonce (a custard-like cream filling) or marzipan.

The dough, like Apfelstrudel dough, is folded, rolled and chilled multiple times to give it its flaky texture.

Answer: Cardamom

Pulla is a brioche-like bread flavoured with cardamom and sometimes topped with flaked almonds and nib sugar, like the one pictured here, or raisins. The braided variety shown here is called 'pitko', while other variants of pulla include korvapuusti, similar to cinnamon rolls, or smaller scone-like breads. Glazes for pulla include an egg wash similar to the kind used for brioche, or a mixture of sugar and coffee.

Other Nordic cakes and puddings in which cardamom is used include Julekake (a sweet Yule/Christmas bread), blåbärsbullar (Swedish blueberry buns) and sjokoladeboller (Norwegian buns with chocolate chips).

Answer: Medovik

Medovik is a multilayered honey cake sandwiched together with a creamy filling made from sour cream, custard or condensed milk. Honey was historically used as a sweetener in Russian cooking before the availability of sugar, and even today, Russia has several varieties of honey cake; traditional western Russian honey cakes contain the 'three saviours' of the harvest, honey, walnuts and apples. Because of the many layers, making medovik is a time-consuming process; the filling stops the thin layers from drying out.

The cake is topped with walnuts or cake crumbs. (All the other answers are Russian desserts: trubochka are pastries similar to cannoli, kulich is a type of sweet Easter bread, and vatrushka is a bun stuffed with quark and sometimes fruit as well.)

Answer: Franz Sacher

Yes, you've guessed it - the cake is Sachertorte, invented by confectioner Franz Sacher. According to his son Eduard, who later founded the Sacher Hotel, Sacher came up with the idea for the cake while he was working for the personal chef of Prince Metternich, the then Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, although this story is thought to be apocryphal. Sachertorte is a rich chocolate cake sandwiched together with apricot jam and covered in dark chocolate icing; the exact recipe invented by Sacher is a closely guarded secret. On a personal note, my dad used to go on many business trips around Europe in the '90s, and when he went on a business trip to Austria, one of the things he brought back was a box of Sachertorte.

Answer: Vlaai

Limburg is not only famous for nasty-smelling cheese, but for vlaai, a latticed fruit pie (not to be confused with vla, a Dutch custard). To make matters more confusing, both Belgium and the Netherlands have a province called Limburg (the Dutch one borders both Belgium and Germany, while the Belgian one is in Flanders and one of the Dutch-speaking areas), and vlaai is enjoyed in both provinces.

It is usually made with a cherry filling, but may also contain apricots or strawberries, and a funereal variant known as zwarte pruimenvlaai contains black plums.

Another non-fruit variant, rijstevlaai, contains a filling similar to rice pudding and is served cold. (The other answers are also Dutch puddings; melktert is a custard pie exported to South Africa, poffertjes are puffy pancakes, and tompouce is the Dutch equivalent of millefeuille.)

Answer: Tulumba

Not to be confused with Alexander the Great's ancient homeland, North Macedonia became independent in 1991, following the break-up of Yugoslavia. Its cuisine is influenced by both Mediterranean and Turkish cooking; the country also has a strong coffee culture. Like the Indian jalebi or the Mexican churro, tulumba consists of deep-fried pieces of batter soaked in sugar syrup, and like the churro, it has an elongated shape with ridges.

These tulumba here are served with kaymak (clotted cream) and crushed pistachio nuts.

The name comes from the Italian 'tromba', or 'pump'. They are a popular post-Ramadan snack in Muslim communities. (As for the other answers, lokma are similar to tulumba, but more rounded; cezerye is a sticky pudding made with carrots, desiccated coconut and chopped nuts; and kazandibi is a milk pudding.)

Answer: Christmas

Kutia is traditionally consumed at Christmas, where it is one of the signature dishes of the Ukrainian twelve-dish Christmas Eve supper, known as 'Sviata Vecheria' (Holy Supper). It is a grainy porridge flavoured with honey, nuts, spices and sometimes raisins, and is served at the beginning of the meal, along with poppy seed milk (poppy seeds being a symbol of prosperity).

The 12 dishes consumed at Sviata Vecheria traditionally do not contain eggs, milk or meat, and also include sauerkraut, holopchi (cabbage rolls), kolach (Christmas bread) and varenyky (dumplings).

The head of the family will take a spoonful of kutia and invite the souls of dead family members to join the family, before tasting the kutia and throwing a spoonful at the ceiling.

The number of grains that stick to the ceiling is said to represent the number of bees and newborn cattle in the coming year. The rest of the family then take a spoonful each.

Answer: Rose

To be precise, rozata gets its flavour from a type of Croatian rose liqueur called rozalin, or ruzovača. The other flavouring ingredient is lemon peel, which is used to infuse the milk while it's being heated. It comes from Dubrovnik, one of Croatia's most loved tourist destinations, in the Dalmatian region.

As rozalin is hard to come by, especially outside Croatia, some rozata recipes suggest using rum and/or rosewater as an alternative; however, it can be made at home with sugar, rose petals and rakija, a type of fruit brandy popular in the Balkans, for those patient enough to try.

Answer: Apples

The bread used to make zemlovka can be rohlíks, crescent-shaped bread rolls, or veka, the Czech equivalent of a baguette. First, the bread is soaked in milk flavoured with sugar and cinnamon, then layered with raisins and apples. Some recipes also add tvarog (a type of quark popular in Eastern Europe), a custard to be poured on top, or top the pudding with meringue. Variants with plums, nectarines or pears also exist.

Incidentally, I had a go at making zemlovka myself a couple of years ago, using the Hairy Bikers' recipe, and it is delicious. I used chocolate chip brioche rolls to add a bit of extra sweetness, and the recipe also called for soaking the raisins in tea beforehand.

Answer: Fat rascals

'Fat rascal' might sound like a derogatory nickname for a rotund opposition player, but it's also the name of a fruity teatime cake from Yorkshire, similar to the rock bun (so named because it looks a bit like a rock). The name 'fat rascal' is actually trademarked by Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate, a company which owns tea company Yorkshire Tea; Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms (and yes, it is supposed to be spelled like that) introduced a version which had a face drawn on it with a mouth made of almonds and glacé cherry eyes in 1983. One variant, filled with chocolate, has a smile made from orange peel. (The other answers are also English: singin' hinnies are griddle cakes from Newcastle, 'hinny' being a Geordie term of endearment; Pope ladies are vaguely human-shaped buns from St Albans; and Eton mess is a delicious mixture of strawberries, cream and crushed meringue.)

Answer: Drop scones

Similar to the Welsh crempog, Scotch pancakes/drop scones are cooked on a griddle and contain buttermilk and bicarbonate of soda. Despite the name, they are not remotely like the kind of scones you'd eat in Devon as part of a cream tea; the 'drop' part comes from the batter being dropped onto the griddle for cooking.

They can be served with melted butter or maple syrup, like the ones in the pictured, or even jam and whipped cream. Commercial varieties flavoured with maple syrup or containing raisins are available in British supermarkets. (The other answers are also Scottish foods: a bannock is a flat quick bread which can be savoury or sweet and sometimes contains raisins, a clootie dumpling is a heavy suet pudding wrapped in a cloth, and a tipsy laird is an alcoholic trifle made with whisky.)

Answer: The dough used for paczki is richer.

Paczki are often dubbed 'Polish doughnuts', but there are differences between them and the type you'd find in a Krispy Kreme branch, and the crucial one is that the yeasty dough used to make paczki is richer and puffier in texture when fried; one recipe describes them as being similar to brioche.

A splash of spiritus, a very potent Polish vodka, or grain alcohol is traditionally used when making paczki, to prevent the oil from being absorbed too deeply into the dough. While custard or Bavarian cream paczki do exist, there are also variants filled with jam; the traditional jam fillings are rose petal jam or powidła (damask plum jam) though more conventional jams like strawberry can be used too. Paczki are traditionally consumed on Tłusty Czwartek (Fat Thursday), the last Thursday before Lent; in olden times, they were a handy way to use up lard, eggs, fruit and sugar before Lenten fasting started.

Answer: Halusky

Admittedly this one was a little tricky. Starting from the top left, the puffy star-shaped cookies are medovníčky, spiced cookies flavoured with honey (which gives them their name), cinnamon and cloves. They have a taste similar to gingerbread. Traditionally, they are also decorated with piped sugar icing patterns.

The cookies next to them are linecké pečivo, or Linzer biscuits; while these ones are dipped in chocolate, the more common variety consists of two biscuit layers sandwiched together with jam.

The white cookies in the bottom left corner are vanilkové rozky, or vanilla crescents, known as Vanillekipferl in Austria. They are made with chopped nuts such as almonds, rolled into a crescent shape and dusted with icing sugar or vanilla sugar. Orechové, the cookies next to the vanilkové rozky, are walnut and coconut cookies.

As for halusky? They're potato dumplings!

Answer: Turron

The principal ingredients of turrón are honey, sugar and egg white, and it dates back to the 16th century at least; one of the earliest recipes was found in the 'Manual de Mujeres' ('Women's Handbook'), which uses egg whites and honey, and suggests pine nuts, hazel nuts or almonds as possible nuts to add once the honey has caramelised.

It is associated with Christmas in Spain, and comes in two main varieties: the Alicante variety, which is harder, more brittle and uses whole almonds, and the Jijona variety, which is softer and more similar to nougat, with the almonds being crushed to paste. I've been to the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona a few times, and while there, I decided to sample turrón (the one I had was coated in chocolate). It's delicious, very chewy and nutty. (The other answers are Spanish sweets; catànies are Catalan almond sweets coated in layers of caramel and chocolate, pestiños are pastries deep-fried in olive oil and eaten around Holy Week in Andalusia and other southern regions of Spain, and bienmesabe is a Canary Island pudding made with almonds, egg yolk and honey and topped with cream.)

Answer: Prinsesstarta

The magnificent prinsesstårta, or 'princess cake', is the Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Swedish cakes. If, like me, you play the Authors' Kitchen, you'll have heard of it as it's one of the original dishes in the game. It consists of sponge layered with custard and jam (a recent addition) and covered with a green marzipan icing, and sometimes topped off with a sugar rose.

The cake is so called because it was said to be popular with Princesses Astrid, Märtha and Margaretha, the daughters of Prince Carl of Sweden and Norway. Swedish furniture chain Ikea sells miniature versions in its stores. If the icing is yellow, the cake is referred to as a prinstårta (prince cake) and if it is red or pink, the cake is an operatårta (opera cake). (The other answers are also Swedish cakes: semla is a sweet bun, eaten around Shrove Tuesday and filled with cream; ostkaka is a cake made with curds and almonds; and dammsugare is a pastry roll which also has green icing and is stuffed with a mixture of cocoa and crushed biscuits.)

Answer: Cherries

Clafoutis is from Limousin in southwest France, which is part of the historical region of Occitania; the word 'clafoutis' comes from the Occitan 'clafotís', which in turn comes from 'clafir' ('to fill'). It consists of cherries - typically black cherries - encased in a thick custard-like batter similar to flan (as in the custard tart type, not the creme caramel type).

The traditional Limousin clafoutis contains the kernels of the cherries, as well as their flesh, as they give a slight almond flavour to the batter.

It is served with cream and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Technically, what I actually made was a flaugnarde, which is the name for a clafoutis that doesn't contain cherries; flaugnardes can contain apples, pears, plums and various other types of fruit.

Answer: Bundt pan

The gugelhupf, also known as a kugelhopf, is a Bundt cake, which means it's baked in a ring-shaped Bundt pan with a tube in the middle, making it look like a large ridged ring doughnut. It was actually the gugelhupf which gave the pan its name, as in north Germany, it's called 'Bundkuchen' - 'Bund' meaning 'bundle' or 'band' in this context, because of the way the dough is bundled around the centre of the pan, or the ridged edges of the pan giving the cake an appearance similar to a sheaf of wheat. Nordic Ware commercialised Bundt pans in the 1950s, trademarking the name. Like the Polish babka, the gugelhupf is made with yeast and sometimes contains raisins, almonds or even cherry brandy; because of its awkward shape, it is sprinkled with sugar rather than being iced like more conventional cakes.

Answer: Dobos

This distinctive cake is Dobos torte, named for its inventor, chef and delicatessen owner Joszef Dobos (the other answers are Hungarian footballers). It consists of multiple layers of sponge interspersed with chocolate butter cream, coated in chopped nuts and topped with a caramel glaze. Dobos came up with the idea because he wanted to create a cake that would last longer than other cakes, and the caramel topping is not only delicious, but also helps to prevent the cake from drying out quickly. Dobos was also ahead of his time with regards to butter cream, which he'd discovered in France and which contained cocoa butter, as most chefs were using whipped cream to fill and top their cakes.

It was premiered at the National General Exhibition of Budapest in 1885, and Dobos donated the recipe to the Pastry and Honey-Makers' Guild 21 years later.

Answer: Pasteis de nata

The pastel de nata is one of Portugal's signature dishes and can be found in bakeries all over the UK, including my local one. It's a small egg custard tart which dates back to the 18th century at least, and originates from the Hieronymites Monastery at the community of Belém in Lisbon, hence their other name of 'pasteís de Belém' ('pastries of Bethlehem').

In the olden days, egg whites were used to starch clothes and the leftover yolks would be used to bake various pastries and cakes, including pasteís de nata. Following the dissolution of various monasteries, the monks sold the pastries at a local sugar refinery to make extra money, and sold them the recipe after their monastery was closed.

The original recipe is a closely-guarded secret. A Japanese and Korean variant using green tea also exists. (As for the other answers, rabanadas are the Portuguese take on French toast; filhos are deep-fried Christmas cookies sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon; and bolos de arroz are rice muffins.)

Answer: Koulourakia

Koulourakia get their name from koulouria, a sweet ring-shaped loaf, although they can be made in many shapes; these ones here are in the shape of the letter S, while others are braided, shaped like Greek letters or horseshoes, or twisted up like cheese straws.

They are flavoured with orange and/or vanilla, glazed with egg and sprinkled with sesame seeds. They date back as far as ancient times, when the people of Minos made them in snake shapes (snakes being considered a symbol of healing, as Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of healing, traditionally carried a rod with a snake twined round it). Today, they are traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday and made the night before on Holy Saturday. (As for the other answers, bougatsa are filo pastries filled with semolina custard; galaktoboureko is another filo pastry pudding filled with semolina custard, similar to millefeuille; and amygdalota are almond cookies eaten in the Cyclades.)