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15 British Terms from ‘The Great British Baking Show’ I’m Pretty Sure I’ve Figured Out the Meaning of in Context
Don’t let your cake—or your viewing experience—become “claggy.”
If you’ve ever tuned into The Great British Baking Show and found yourself feeling like they’re speaking a different language, you’re not alone. Americans and Brits have many words that don’t cross cultures even though we all supposedly speak English. So I sat down and watched a few episodes with the subtitles turned on and I’m relatively confident I’ve deciphered what the Paul, Prue, and the bakers are talking about.
Here’s my primer on some common U.K. baking terms every U.S. viewer should know:
Biscuit — a cookie
Cookie — a biscuit
Grams — small lbs.
Over-proved—bitchy
Claggy—shitty
Stodgy — thicc
Pudding — any dessert except pudding
Pastie — a pie with black lung
Cornish Pastie—a pie with black lung and some corn
Victoria Sponge — 19th Century birth control
Sultana — a raisin that thinks it’s better than you
Treacle — excessively polite molasses
Caster sugar—sugar that divides society into arbitrary and artificial stratifications based on immutable traits
Bakewell Tart—a prostitute who makes a good pie
Soggy bottom — a wet butt
