Translating the Bake Off!

It’s Bake Off season, and that means it’s time to be bamboozled with technical culinary terms, many of them in a foreign tongue. We’re intrigued by some of the weird and wonderful language that comes out of The Great British Bake Off – no, we don’t mean when bakers accidentally drop their cakes on the floor! – and we wanted to share our favourite baking-related vocabulary…

Biscuit

Coming from French, this literally translates as ‘twice cooked’, i.e. harder than a cake.

Chocolate chip cookies on linen napkin wooden table.

Marmite

Beware, it’s a false friend: the French meaning is a large cooking pot, which actually features on the Marmite logo.

Ganache

IMG_4391

No prizes for guessing that this word comes from French too, but we’d be genuinely impressed if you could tell us the literal meaning: a jaw. We’re not sure what the connection is – can anyone tell us?

Cornetto

When you’re in Italy and in the mood for a delicious gelato, make sure not to slip into O Sole Mio mode and order a cornetto, as this will actually get you a croissant.

croissant

Hors d’oeuvre

We all know this phrase, but did you know it’s so called because it literally translates to ‘outside of the work’ – in other words, an extra to the meal?

Chef

You may have heard this word in German, but did you know that there it means a ‘boss’, not a ‘cook’?

Asian female cooking with magic

Cuisine

Confusingly, in French this can mean both ‘cooking’ and ‘kitchen’: you make your cuisine in the cuisine.

Crème anglaise

Contestants are forever whipping up a quick crème anglaise in the Bake Off and it sounds ever so grand, but actually it just means custard – sorry for the anti-climax. To add insult to injury, anglaise (or English) is used in French to indicate a particularly plain style. Boo!

Orange Creme Brulee

Crème pâtissière

Another Bake Off classic, sounding even more chic, but I’m afraid this also just means custard (albeit a thicker version of the anglaise).

Trifle

Far and away my favourite word in Italian, which bizarrely translates our beloved national pudding into ‘la zuppa inglese’ – English soup.

Trifle cake

Bain-marie

– It’s a little off-putting to find that this French term comes from the Latin meaning ‘Mary’s bath’ – and we don’t mean Mary Berry! It’s actually named after the alchemist Maria Prophetissima, who invented it.

Let us know your favourite linguistically interesting baking terms. Meanwhile… Baaake!

Leave a Comment