Puddings and biscuits

[Carol]

montims:
> > 
> > As I understand it, a pudding in America is gooey and fluffy, like
blancmange, or Instant whip, in various flavours, sometimes with a
pastry base.  Would that be correct, more or less?
> > 
> 
> marion11111:
> I was going to say it's like a custard, but I don't think there are
any eggs in it.  Milk, cornstarch, flavoring.  I'm not sure what else.
 No one makes it from scratch anymore.  In fact, I'm not sure you can
even buy the mixes that you cook on the stove anymore.  It's all  instant.
> 
> It comes in chocolate, banana, butterscotch (YUM!), and vanilla.  I
think I've seen lemon, but I've never seen anything pink.  Anyone know
of strawberrry pudding? <snip>

Carol:

I think homemade pudding does have eggs, or at least egg yolks, in
it.: basically sugar, cornstarch, milk, eggs or egg yolks, flavoring,
and a little salt. It's sometimes used as the filling for a cream pie,
so I would add coconut cream to your list and also the more gelatiny
filling of a lemon meringue pie. I've had caramel pudding layered with
chocolate in store-bought pudding that comes in little yogurt-sized
containers.

I wouldn't call pudding fluffy, more smooth and semisolid. You can
definitely still buy the pudding mixes that you make on the stove
instead of the instant just-add-milk-and-beat (stir rapidly) variety
(Jell-o brand, for one). The only way I know of to make the filling of
a lemon meringue pie, for example, is to mix and cook it on the stove
before pouring it into the pie shell, topping it with meringue, and
baking it. Not sure whether the filling of pumpkin pie (pumpkin, eggs,
evaporated milk, sugar, spices), which definitely has to be baked,
counts as a pudding if you bake it without the pie shell.

Some people eat rice pudding, tapioca pudding, and bread pudding (he
last probably being a British dessert), but I'm not fond of any of
them. (That's an understatement with regard to tapioca.) And they're
not what I think of as pudding.

Carol, who has never seen strawberry, cherry, or orange pudding per se
though those flavors are used for chiffon pies