Categorization of Baked Goods and Pancakes in English and Chinese

J.M. Errington of Haonowshaokao blog is an Englishman who studied linguistsics and is currently teaching English in Beijing, China, so he'd know about this: how to categorize baked goods in three countries. Link


Extras: the small 'cake' (bottom right) would probably be called a bun in the UK. However you can also have bread cakes (as I mentioned before) AND bread buns - buns needs its own category I think. I'd also be tempted to call the Danish pastry a cake, or even a bun. A bread bun with currants in it would of course be a tea cake, unless it's Easter in which case make a cross on top and you have a hot cross BUN.

Simple!
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Dev, er, 'THE creamy dessert'? What creamy dessert would that be? Here in the UK nobody would know what you are talking about - the American definition of pudding is unknown here, which is why I said the word doesn't travel easily between the US and UK.
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Truth is, there's a separate name for just about everything up there in the Chinese section aside from the breads.

The character "? (gao)" is a general noun meaning (roughly) cake or dessert, therefore it almost always needs another adjective to denote which specific kind of cake it is. "?? (dangao)" means literally "egg-cake", while "?? (beigao)" would mean "cup-cake".

Similarly, the character "? (bing)" would mostly be used to denote any food that's round and flat, usually made of flour (and never used as a counter). So crepe would be "??? (keli-bing, this one's a phonetic translation)", pancakes would be "???? (mei shi jian bing, American styled fried bing)", while cookies are "?? (bingan, bing dried)" and biscuits are called "??? (bisiji, another phonetic translation)".

So yeah, as a nation with a long and proud culinary tradition, we certainly don't round up stuff and call them similar names as this English gentlemen suggest...
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Rookie mistakes. "bing" is not the name of a food, it's a counting-word for things that are round and flat. Also, cookies are not "bing", but "binggan".

I don't know why the cake-looking thing is classified as a "bing" in the picture, since I don't know anyone who wouldn't call it a "dangao".
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Pudding doesn't travel that poorly - we just have to be specific (i.e. bread pudding) to differentiate from the creamy desert.

In the US, biscuits and scones are similar, but not the same. Though the recipe is similar, "scone" is generally reserved for sweet scones only, while biscuits are savory, and the texture can vary depending on ingredients (flower or baking soda, how you treat/cut/drop the dough, etc). And to the poster above, lard is not required, much less typical these days, we usually use butter as well.
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Apparently what Americans call pancakes I (in the UK) would call Scotch pancakes.

Pudding is also a word which doesn't travel easily between the US and UK.

Chips/fries/crisps - extra confusion.

Chip butty in a bread cake (aka chip cob, chip barm)... selected UK regions only!
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This comparison is all sorts of wrong... As an Englishman who has lived in the US for several years, I have had to become bilingual to avoid disappointment when asking someone for a 'biscuit'.

I don't believe anyone in the US/UK would ever call the Danish/cinnamon roll thing 'bread'.

The top 'British English' biscuit (a digestive) is a true biscuit. However, the one below that (which appears to have some sort of chocolate chips in it) would probably be called a cookie. I would generally reserve the term 'cookie' for a sub-class of biscuit.
All cookies are biscuits, but not all biscuits are cookies... especially if they are soggy.

Also, in general, all biscuits and scones are sweet(ish), and you certainly wouldn't dunk them into gravy... only tea.
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Agreed on the danish not being a bread; it'd be considered a pastry by most of us I think and therefore not on this chart at all.

Most commonwealth country folks I know will say that scones are the same as biscuits, but most Americans will say they're a different beast (particularly those from the south). Technically I do think there are types of scones that are similar to an American biscuit, but scones often include eggs or cream in the recipe and almost always use butter rather than lard as a traditional American biscuit would. Plus scones also often have nuts or dried fruit included.

I'd call the pictured American English 'biscuit' a scone although it does seem to be one of the more biscuity scones, apart from the fruit.
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I don't know any Americans who would consider a Danish a type of bread. Also, are biscuits just really another name for scone? We need a more complicated chart.
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