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English vs English


deanb
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So it turns out if you ask for a "flapjack" in America you'll get one of their attempts at a pancake (aka a scotch pancake of a fucked up crumpet*). And not a crunchy bar of oaty goodness. For that you have to ask for a granola bar, and it's not quick a flapjack but more a kind of "muesli crushed into a bar", rather than edible brick bound by sugar and baked with grandmas love.

 

Range from pretty hard and fibrous:

P1050256.JPG

 

Through to soft and chewy:

flapjack425.jpg

 

It's a topic that cropped up on Twitter

 

 

*I should note given the cheap availability of crumpets I haven't the fucking foggiest how you'd go about making one. They're just a thing that exists, maybe they're mined from the ground, or a leftover by product of making paper or something. Or like it turns out 1 in 10 batches of sponge come out perfectly edible?

Crumpet:

Buttered_crumpet2.jpg

(obviously baking powder gets involved somewhere)

 

 

Also we should totally swap recipes for stuff at some point. i.e biscuits. I've a couple recipe books here I'm sure I could delve into, though a fair chunk of the recipes are pretty multi-cultural. I guess really for british food you'd need a Be-Ro book. (Holy fuck, they're only £2.50, you'd have thought that was how much your grans or mams copy cost)

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The bottom picture isn't like a Blondie, which is just a white chocolate brownie isn't it? The photo Is still made of oats. Just oats butter and sugar mixed and baked.

 

I've never made crumpets before, but I have made pikelets. I think the only difference is you pour the batter into a ring when you're frying it to make it taller and therefore a crumpet. Definitely worth the effort to make them fresh. Absolutely yummy. I prefer pikelets to crumpets, which can be a bit rubbery. A nice one is nice though and we probably have them more than pikelets as they're hard to find.

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i read the article, prior to my previous post. it says they're brownies without cocoa. I've never seen one without white chocolate chips in so it is bascally what i said and completely different to the oat flapjack in the photo

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Pancakes are good, but, for the money, skip pancakes and go straight for the french toast or crepes.  With french toast, the flavor is hard to get wrong in most restaurants, where they can sometimes make the pancake taste like cardboard (homemade is always best!).

 

But, I'm not sure the British people eat pancakes for breakfast.  I think they do all that stuff for tea time, which I believe is their next break time (aka "rest period") after lunch (aka "meal period").

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What are examples of terrible British baked goods? I wouldn't even call pancakes baked goods myself and it's not like we don't have pancakes here, people just generally prefer the bigger flatter more crepe like ones. Of course ours aren't as paper thin as a French crepe. I guess you like what you grow up with as I find American style pancakes kind of dry and tasteless. But I've never had them in America so maybe no one here makes them right. If anyone had any tips on making them nice I'd love to be convinced of their virtues.

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  • 3 weeks later...

"Flapjack" is an old-timey word for pancakes. I haven't regularly heard it used in the USA, outside of advertising and old-timey movies.

 

Pancakes are fucking delicious and are better than the vast majority of terrible English baked goods.

 

 
Yeah... Flapjacks aren't pancakes, not even close. Flapjacks are baked oat cakes made with either syrup, honey or treacle depending on the type (most common is syrup). I keep hearing this, even from other British people and wondering where they're getting it... this is a flapjack:
 
36709.jpg?TsA

 

If half chips, half rice a thing in America (or the rest of the UK come to think of it)?

 

Yeah, half and half is a thing pretty much everywhere in UK. You'll occasionally find places in villages all across the country who claim it's not a thing " 'round these parts", and act like you've asked for hippo tongue; but usually it's a normal request.

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Half chips, half rice does not exist in lands with real and good food, like the USA.

 

We pick our starches and STICK WITH THEM.

 

Furthermore, chips, to us, are what you mistakenly call crisps in the UK. What you mistakenly call chips are actually French fries or just fries for short.

Edited by Mr. GOH!
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I think you'll find Mr. GOH that you're the one mistaken. As the Englishman I'll explain how to speak English... as an American I'm sure you speak the native languages of your land; such as Salish or Navaho, and I promise to not correct you on those languages :P

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