October 13th is National Yorkshire Pudding Day. Yorkshire Pudding is neither sweet, a dessert, or what Americans think of as pudding. In fact, it’s very much like a popover, an Americanized version of Yorkshire Pudding. (The history of Yorkshire pudding is below.) The difference:

 
 
WHY IS IT CALLED A PUDDING?

In many Commonwealth countries, a pudding most often refers to a sweet, cake-like dessert.

These older-style puddings are baked, boiled or steamed into a cake-like consistency.

In the U.K., newer-style creamy puddings—those that Americans think of as puddings—are called:

 
 
SAVORY PUDDINGS

“Pudding” can also be a savory dish: a side or a main dish.

Some of the better-known savory puddings include:

 
 
THE HISTORY OF “PUDDING”

The word “pudding” evolved from the French boudin (originally from the Latin botellus), meaning “small sausage.”

In Medieval times, sausages were an ingredient in savory puddings. According to FoodTimeline.org, 17th century English puddings were either savory (meat-based) or sweet (made from flour, nuts and sugar), and were typically boiled in special pudding bags.

Far from the creamy dessert puddings popular in the U.S., these puddings were a solid mass formed by mixing various ingredients with a grain product or another binder (batter, blood, cereal, eggs, flour or suet, for example) and cooked by baking, boiling or steaming. The “pease porridge” of the old nursery rhyme was likely a simple boiled pudding made from pease meal (pease is a legume). They were—and still are—served as a main dish; sweet puddings evolved and were served as dessert.

By the latter half of the 18th century, traditional English puddings no longer included meat. In the 19th century, the boiled pudding evolved into the U.K.’s cake-like concept, such as the Christmas pudding that remains popular to this day.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE PUDDING

Here’s the history of Yorkshire Pudding, courtesy of Wikipedia:

When wheat flour began to come into common use for making cakes and puddings, cooks in the north of England (where Yorkshire is located) devised a way to use the fat that dropped into the dripping pan of roasting meats. They used it to cook a batter pudding while the meat roasted in the oven.

There is a printed recipe for “Dripping Pudding,” which had been cooked in England for centuries to accompany meat dishes, in 1737 cookbook:

Make a good batter as for pancakes; put in a hot toss-pan over the fire with a bit of butter to fry the bottom a little then put the pan and butter under a shoulder of mutton, instead of a dripping pan, keeping frequently shaking it by the handle and it will be light and savoury, and fit to take up when your mutton is enough; then turn it in a dish and serve it hot.

Similar instructions were published in 1747 in “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy,” by Hannah Glasse. It was called Yorkshire Pudding, and Ms. Glasse is credited with renaming Dripping Pudding.

The Yorkshire Pudding is a staple of the British Sunday lunch. While today it is served alongside the meat and vegetables, some people in parts of Yorkshire still eat it the old-fashioned way, as a separate course prior to the main meat dish.

Why? The story has it that the purpose of the dish was to provide a cheap way to fill the diners, thus stretching a lesser amount of the more expensive ingredients.

Yorkshire Pudding is quick and easy to make. Here’s a recipe.

[1] Yorkshire Pudding and Roast Beef (photo © Gordon Ramsay Group).

[2] Yorkshire Pudding with the traditional fixings (photo © Robbie Jim | Wikipedia).

[3] It’s not just for roast beef (photo © Brett Jordan | Unsplash).

[4] Food fun: Instead of serving Yorkshire pudding on the side of the roast beef, serve the roast beef inside a Yorkshire pudding (photo © Salt & Honey Caterering | Bay Area).

[5] Yorkshire puddings, hot from the pan (photo © Stef Yau | Wikipedia).

For people who love salad—and especially for those who don’t—a straight-sided 3-quart glass bowl makes those greens and other ingredients look so much more inviting.

So today’s tip is: Dig out your glass bowl, and if you don’t have one, get one. A glass mixing bowl doubles as a salad bowl/serving bowl.

The bowl in the photo is filled with a reduced-calorie, reduced-fat version of the Seven Layer Salad, created by Kraft. A few small changes to the classic recipe save you 80 calories and 8g of fat, including 2.5g of saturated fat, per serving.

Yet, this better-for-you version still has all seven layers of flavor. Prep time 20 minutes, rest time 1 hour.
RECIPE: REDUCED CALORIE/FAT SEVEN LAYER SALAD

Ingredients For 12 One-Cup Servings

 
Preparation

1. LAYER first 4 ingredients in clear glass bowl.

2. SPREAD mayonnaise evenly over salad to edge of bowl; sprinkle with cheese. Top with bacon.

3. REFRIGERATE 1 hour. Toss just before serving.

NOTE: The salad can be refrigerated up to 6 hours before serving. Keep the bacon out of the fridge—ideally, cook it shortly before serving—and add it just before you bring the bowl to the table.

Find more recipes at KraftRecipes.com.
  

Are you looking at me? Photo courtesy Bella
Baker.

Here are the photos that show how she decorates the plain cake pops, along with designs you can follow for candy corn, jack-o-lantern and monster designs.

If you need a cake pops recipe book, take a look at:

The cake is topped in fondant and decorated with fondant eyeballs, although you can make only the fondant eyeballs and use them to decorate a frosted cake.

Here’s everything you need to make it.

Perhaps the theme for Halloween baking should be, “the eyes have it.”

Make “eyeballs” from fondant. Photo courtesy Wilton.

This inspiration comes from one of our favorite seafood restaurants, David Burke’s Fishtail in New York City.

If you’re missing the warmth of summer, evoke the tropics with this creative dessert: an individual coconut cake garnished with “drunken” mango salsa (add rum to a sweet mango salsa) and a scoop of mango sorbet.

Cookie crumbs, which are used on the side of the cake, are also used for “sand” around the palm tree cookie, which is pressed to the side of the cake.

The “palm tree” is a cookie decorated with green sanding sugar). The palm trees are also a fun decorating idea for a full-size coconut cake.
 

 
RECIPE: MANGO DESSERT SALSA
Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. TOSS fruit with lime and honey in a bowl.

2. REFRIGERATE until ready to use.

Strolling up and down the aisles, we wandered into the salad dressing area.

We found ourselves hungering for a big salad with ginger-miso dressing—the type of dressing, often orange in color, served on green salads at most Japanese restaurants. So…

We purchased three different brands, chopped up a big salad for dinner, and tossed it with dressing.

OMG: Is every prepared consumer food product sold in America drowning in sugar? Would the same brand sold in Japan be this sweet?

(Indeed, manufacturers alter their recipes to suit the tastes of different nationalities. For example, the original Dutch Heineken beer is much heartier than the watered-down product sold in the U.S.)

At $4.59 for a 12-ounce bottle, we were, to say the least, disappointed.

We rarely purchase salad dressing because it’s so easy to make, and the price is very high given the low cost of a bit of oil, vinegar, and seasonings. If we buy a bottle, it should taste great!
 
We knew we could do better than these overly sweet bottles. The next day, mixed our own, using it to top a dinner of grilled chicken on greens.

The recipe that follows took us 5 minutes (just toss all ingredients into the food processor); and the ingredients cost pennies, not dollars.

> Check out the information below on how to choose a salad oil.

> See our Culinary Oils Glossary for more information on the different types of salad oils.
 
 
RECIPE: GINGER MISO DRESSING

This recipe makes 3/4 cup dressing, enough for a salad for four. Feel free to double it and refrigerate the extra dressing—for your next salad, as a dip with raw vegetables, or as a sauce for grilled chicken, seafood, or vegetables.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until creamy.

2. USE immediately or refrigerate.

[1] Freshly chopped and waiting for ginger miso dressing (photo by Elvira Kalviste | © THE NIBBLE).

[2] Fresh ginger root (photo © Good Eggs).

[3] Garlic bulb and cloves (photo Wesual Click | Public Domain).

When choosing oil for any culinary use, head to the monounsaturated fats, the “heart-healthy” oils.

Canola oil and olive oil, two popular cooking oils, are low in unhealthy saturated fat and not-so-healthy polyunsaturated fat, and high in healthy monounsaturated fat.

Scientists believe that monounsaturated fats help lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) that can clog arteries, leading to heart disease or stroke, while increasing the level of good cholesterol (HDL) that removes cholesterol buildup from the arteries. Integrate more of them, as well as the other oils listed above, into your diet.

> Here’s more on good fats vs. bad fats.
 
What about corn oil and vegetable oil?

While all oils are a combination of monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated fats, a heart-healthy oil has a preponderance of monounsaturated oils.

In contrast, corn oil, vegetable oil *, and other popular cooking oils are largely polyunsaturated oils, where the preponderance of the fat is not monounsaturated: corn oil 62%, grape seed oil 71%; safflower oil 77%; sunflower oil (linolenic—69%).
 
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*Vegetable oil can be a blend of oils, e.g. corn, soybean, and sunflower, or it may be only one type of oil. There is no requirement for the label to list the type(s) of oil in the bottle. Generally, “vegetable oil” is refined to have a high smoke point but very little taste or aroma. This makes it a good all-purpose oil for baking, frying, and sautéeing. However, it is not of sufficient quality to be used as a condiment oil or for salad dressings.
  
 
 

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