| There are no Norwegian desserts I'm aware of that are basically a bowl of cream, so I'm curious what you had that gave you that impression. There are a variety of traditional puddings and mousses, usually served with a contrasting sauce. That's the closest you might get to a "bowl of cream" that I can think of. There's also a variety of porridge types but they are usually served as the main meal, not dessert. All of these might be served without anything on, but you're rarely meant to eat them that way unless it's a mousse with a particularly distinct flavor or texture (e.g. a chocolate mousse might be served without a sauce, but you'd not generally do that with a caramel pudding or almond pudding) Then again most of these are not served often apart from Christmas, where rice porridge and puddings are a tradition, or as a treat for children. When it comes to finding non-British bakeries "limiting" the only thing I could think of would be savoury pastries, as that is a weird British obsession and the selection will generally be very small most other places. To me that doesn't belong anywhere, but certainly not at a bakery. At a butchers or a 7-11 or similar comfort-food store, maybe, but not at a bakery.. Apart from that I can't think of any category of baked goods I've found an adequate selection of in a British-style bakery. In actual French-owned bakeries or patisseries (like e.g. PAUL) sure, but most French-sounding bakeries in the UK are British bakeries. E.g Cuisine de France / Delice de France brands are owned by Aryzta Food Solutions of Southall, Middlesex... And this is the cake selection of a relatively fancy British bakery (Peyton and Byrne), to illustrate my original issue of overly fruity selections: Berries: Swiss Roll (though this can also be made with cream fillings, it's usually jam in the UK), Victoria Sponge, Bakewell Tart Fruity: Jaffa Cake, Lemon Drizzle Loaf, Banana Loaf, Elderflower Layer Cake, Banoffee, Lemon Meringe Non-Fruity/berry: Chocolate & Caramel Explosion (possibly, I would not be surprised to see berries on that in the UK), Carrot Cake, Coffee & Walnut (not a certainty...), Treacle Tart, Chocolate & Salted Caramel So that is 4 out of 13 where fruit or berries are not a substantial element. This is in my experience a substantially above average selection terms of avoiding fruit/berry dominated pastry. And I've nice and not put the treacle tart in the fruit category (since it's generally more zesty than overly sweetened lemon. Here's an example of what I expect a decent selection of cakes to look like at a bakery: https://samson.no/sortiment/konditorvarer
https://samson.no/sortiment/sot-bakst I have excluded their large cakes and only included the ones suitable to eat in (though most will have a selection of slices from their larger cakes available to eat in at times as well). Of those the following have fruit or berries: Rosinbolle (raisins), Scones Grov (raisins), Skolebrød (drizzled coconut shavings on top), Eplemuffins (apples), Jacob (raisins), Friand (raspberries), Sitronterte (lemons), Jordbærterte (strawberries), Sitronkake (lemons) That is 14 out of 26, of which most will not be particularly sweetened by the fruit, as unlike the British selection most of them are small amounts rather than filling, and pieces of fresh fruit rather than jam or similar high-sugar. I would say that would apply to about half of the above. Note, I am not against using berries and to a (much lesser extent) fruit in pastry, but the dominance of it in UK pastries annoys me. In the selection above you see, on top of a similar selection of different fruits and berries, pastries with fillings based on almonds (macaron style fillings), rum, egg cream, chocolate, vanilla cream, cinnamon, several of them in several distinct variations. |
Also there are several types of 'porridge' for which the primary ingredient is cream but yeah they are served as a main meal rather than a dessert.
As I say this really does come down to personal preference which is largely shaped by where you grew up.