Being sensible people, Americans have cake and ice cream at birthday parties.
OK, here’s a strange combination that nonetheless works very well…cake and cheese. Fruit cake and white stilton is a very good combination. (I’ve only come across this in Yorkshire, so it may be a regionalism.)
Try chocolate jell-o pudding and red jell-o together. Unbeatable!
As for jelly and jam, a chunkless jam may be called a jelly in UK or a preserve. Still jelly would nearly always be assumed to mean Jello (Fruity gellatine desert). Citrus jams are often called marmalades (sp?) which can also be chunky or smoothe.
and then there’s also lemon curd/lemon cheese, just to add to the jolly (or is that jelly?) fun.
Considering what little rodents run this board, I’m a bit surprised we haven’t heard anything about making tulips from hamsterjam yet.
(Yes, I’ll get my coat)
Ah. My curiosity is satisfied – thank you. You’re quite right, that is the best way to enjoy a really rich chocolate cake.
The “cake-y things with cream” would certainly fall into the general category of cream cake as the term’s used here. In fact it sounds about as close a definition as you could get – eclairs, choux buns, cream horns, cream slices, cream doughnuts, cream buns – any kind of sweet pastry, cake or bread; if it’s stuffed with cream, it’s a cream cake.
Actually, looking at my post again, I think that what I was describing looks more like a gateau.
And I’m more pleased than you would imagine that you enjoyed your visit here: I didn’t get a summer holiday for the last two years because I was too busy typesetting the Northumbria tourist brochure – thank god somebody actually came!
Try a slice of cold apple pie with some wensleydale (or a nice mature lancashire).
The cream things came from Gregg’s, mostly. My favorite was a pastry with cooked apples and cream. Regretably, many (if not most) American bakeries use “creme” filling–nasty stuff. My husband loves it; I loathe it. It is very sweet and sort of gelatinous.
We loved Northumbria. The tourism professional in you will love the fact that we spent quite a bit, too, and have told lots of people about it. We went to Holy Island, Hadrian’s Wall, Alnick and Bamburgh castles, and stayed near Alnmouth. I used mostly this site:
Did you happen to write for them? My mother in law also had some print brochures, so if the website isn’t yours, I bet the print stuff was. I am so happy that you pleased we came. I only wish we had met then. Nothing like having a pro’s advice.
Ah, bless you, I’m no tourism professional, just a lowly designer/typesetter (or Mac monkey as we’re known in the trade). It just so happens that I’ve worked on a number of tourism related materials this last two or three years. I wasn‘t involved with that website, but I typeset the accompanying brochure for the last two years (the accommodation listings were great fun 
) as well as stuff for Hadrian’s Wall, Haltwhistle, and other places further afield. So, yes, you’ve almost certainly had your hands on stuff that I was at least partially responsible for. I hope you didn’t get cream all over them! 