Just Desserts

Oct 23

5 min read

Week Five of Bake Off and we’re halfway through the series, meaning it’s just five short weeks until we get to find out what festive controversy John Lewis has put together for 2026.*

This week’s Showstopper was a dessert trolley, with each baker having to make a selection of retro desserts. From Queen Of Puddings to trifle, every baker had their own interpretation of what ‘retro’ means to them. If it had been me, I’d have just done jelly and ice cream - it’s one of those combinations that smacks of gritty play areas, paper birthday hats, and rounds of Musical Chairs with a slightly suspect CD player.

For other people, ‘retro’ might mean sherry trifle from a box, topped with green and red angelica and those little silver balls that you don’t seem to be able to buy anymore. Some people might remember those stripy bricks of Walls ice cream in cardboard cartons, or paper-wrapped rectangular choc-ices with their fragile but prized chocolate layers. Some of our customers might remember big sheets of school sponge and tall jugs of custard, served with lava-hot treacly sauces that burned the roof of your mouth and made it hurt for days - but it was worth it.

The 20th century was a time of transformation for desserts, spanning raisin-based boiled puddings to spoon-shattering Ice Magic to the now-ubiquitous Muller Corner. While none of these quite made it onto the trolleys of this week’s bakers, here are some of the most popular desserts of the 1900s.

1900s

Inspired by the 1890s’ answer to Taylor Swift, the Peach Melba was invented by August Escoffier in honour of Nellie Melba, an Australian soprano who was one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian period. Escoffier himself knew Nellie well - or, at least, well enough to name four dishes after her (yes, including Melba toast). The Peach Melba was served in both The Savoy and The Ritz Carlton during Escoffier’s time at each. To make one at home, top vanilla ice cream with fresh sliced peaches, pour over a zingy raspberry coulis - then serve it all on an ice sculpture of a swan.

1910s

Forget Tamagotchis, the hula hoop, or six seven - the 1910s was all about the paper bag. Promising that there would be ‘no pots or pans to clean’, and that ‘the drudgery of the kitchen will be abolished’, Nicholas Soyer’s 1911 publication of Soyer’s Paper Bag Cookery promised a world of convenience to the housewives of Edwardian England. If you’re looking for the perfect paper-bag pudding, here’s a recipe for a jam roly-poly that removes any chance of the jam ‘boiling out’.

1920s

In the 1920s, it became very fashionable to serve a savoury at the end of a meal, rather than a sweet. Combine this with the invention of instant gelatin, and suddenly there was a trend for serving absolutely anything in aspic. From chicken mousse to salmon mousseline to potato salad, it was wobble or nothing. Serving something in aspic was a sign of wealth, meaning that your staff had the time to clarify bouillon and set it in one of those new-fangled refrigerators.

1930s

By the 1930s, almost two thirds of everything eaten in the UK was imported. The rise in popularity of canned foods coincided with the decline of household staff, and convenience started to have an impact on everyday home menus. Tinned fruit, like peaches, was easily available, meaning that cooking no longer had to be seasonal. And, if you don’t have TikTok, the idea of a pineapple in a tin is probably quite exciting. Pineapple upside-down cake, with its tropical flavours and eye-catching Maraschino cherries, was the perfect dessert for showing off to your friends.

1940s

The blackout brought boredom to most homes. Unable to read, sew, play cards, or go outside, English families had to come up with a new way of entertaining themselves. The combination of dining in the dark and rationing meant that housewives had to come up with novel recipes as a way of presenting less palatable ingredients to hungry families. The rise of the ‘mock’ recipe was a way of getting around shortages while still ensuring everyone around the table had enough. One popular recipe was for mock apricot tart with mock cream - well, with the lights off, can you really tell the difference between carrots and apricots?

1950s

Rationing didn’t end with VE Day. The UK was still subject to rationing up until the mid-1950s, with butter and sugar being two of the last groceries to be freely available. As a result, British housewives had to work with what was available, meaning that pies were out and crumbles were in. Fortunately, fresh fruit was never rationed in England - and neither was custard powder.

1960s

While blancmange itself has been around since the 1300s, it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that it was commonplace in supermarkets, grocers and larders across the country. Made by adding a packet of cornflour, flavouring and colouring to heated milk, blancmange soon became the mainstay of any children’s party of the 1960s. Available in chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla, you only needed two things to make it - a saucepan, and a rabbit-shaped mould.

1970s

Convenience was king in the 1970s. From the SodaStream to Vesta ready meals, meals needed to be hot, filling, and quick. Because it only took five minutes to set, Angel Delight was the ideal dessert to follow your Findus Crispy Pancakes. Available in pink (strawberry), brown (chocolate or coffee), or various shades of yellow (vanilla, banana, butterscotch, and peach), all you needed was milk, a big bowl, and some hundreds and thousands.

1980s

With the rise of the home freezer, the 1980s meant you could serve restaurant-style desserts at home for the first time. Everything in the eighties was big - the hair, the shoulder pads, the boomboxes, and, now, pudding. More was more - and, with its decadent chocolate sponge, its brandy-soaked cherries, and its perfectly piped rosettes of whipped cream, the frozen Black Forest Gateau was the ideal OTT way to end an evening of prawn cocktail, Steak Diane, and several bottles of Mateus.

1990s

Ok, so it wasn’t invented in the nineties, but who can forget the television ad campaign for Viennetta? With its cut glass bowls, neatly manicured hands, and candlelit table, the adverts made Viennetta aspirational, chic, and totally separate to its neighbouring plastic tub of Walls’ bright yellow vanilla ice cream. Whether you had it on Sundays, at Christmas, or only at your grandma’s, Viennetta was exclusively reserved for special occasions.

They were right - one slice is never enough.