Whether to buy dessert forks!

[Abcd3]

Do you use dessert forks? I’m not talking about pastry forks, which might be used on their own, but dessert forks, which my grandparents used to use in combination with a spoon to eat dessert. I’m not sure whether to bother buying any; I don’t use them myself, but wonder whether some guests might prefer to use them. (My grandparents are no longer alive; if they were I would definitely buy the forks for their visits.)

I tend to use a pastry fork for desserts. Never owned dessert forks.

@DtPeabodysLoosePants sounds a lovely and useful set.

I have a sauce ladle too They did a beautiful strawberries and cream set that was much coveted and I'd love sugar tongs.

I’m now wondering whether there’s any difference between pastry forks and cake forks! Wikipedia uses the term interchangeably (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastry_fork), but on the John Lewis website, all the pastry forks have three tines and all except one of the cake forks have four. Does anyone have a view on this?!

My knives and forks for comparison. Pastry forks have 3 tines I think. I don't have any of those. I do somewhere have the catalogue of cutlery so i'll have a look.

Oo, thank you! Your cutlery is lovely, by the way!

I was taught 'fork ever, spoon never' for pudding. Always use a fork except for individual creamy pudding in glasses kind of thing.

Cake vs pastry forks (putting dessert forks to one side just for the moment) - I would definitely expect 3 tines. With the one tine thicker. Can’t imagine 4 - wouldn’t be the width for four surely?
Bloody love this thread.

A pastry fork has a thicker first tine with a slanted tip afaik.
I was told that salad forks were an American thing and generally frowned upon

I felt I should introduce all to this beauty recently inherited. Around 7 inches long.

When I saw one I though ‘ok it’s for getting things from tall jars’. Then I saw there was a set of 6. !! Even in my most rabid olive frenzy I’d only need one.

Some kind of sundae glass fork ? (Although we didn’t ever use them - we had silver spoon straws for that)

The more I dip into the cutlery boxes the more I see my lovely old ma in a different light !

I'm always confused as to how to classify crumble. Is it a dessert or a pudding? According to deBrett's a dessert must contain fruit and therefore surely requires a fork. How on earth does one eat crumble and custard with a fork?? I'm off to grab the deBrett's off the shelf as it does tell you how to eat certain foods.

Crumble - I eat it with a fork but only because I don’t like custard so it kind of makes sense.

I really don’t like eating desserts with a spoon if it can be helped I think. I hadn’t realised this until this thread.

I’d hesitate to call crumble a dessert But not sure why.

@HeronLanyon That is a beautiful fork!

Out of interest, here’s a photo of four-pronged cake forks!

@HeronLanyon I think it might be a pickled onion fork.

John Lewis have just gone down in my estimation with those excuses for cutlery!

@HeronLanyon I have some silver forks like yours, I bought them from an antique shop they were labelled as pickle forks, so yes they are probably for picked onions.

Yes! We have dessert forks.

I can't bear to go to dinner and have a pudding with no fork - feels odd.

I am extremely poncey though.

Dessert shouldn’t technically have cooked fruit DtPeabodysLoosePants hence better to eat with a fork.

This is weirdly fascinating. I have what I call cake forks which seem to be the same as what most of you are calling pastry forks. Never heard of pastry forks!

Damn hit post too soon. I love mine for eating cake or cheesecake. But any kind of stodgy pudding would be spoon territory.

Yes ‘my’ fork did look like pickle/jar type implement but I just can’t get over the fact there 6 and they match that set - are part of a full canteen (funny word). Thanks all - I
May now need somehow to cook something for 6 of us which involves a tall jar of pickles. Hmmm

I don't like eating puddings with just a spoon. Ice cream is the exception - a teaspoon works for that if it's in a small dish.

OP - have you checked whether there are matching dessert forks available anywhere? I guess it depends whether the cutlery is branded or not.

Unfortunately the cutlery set is made by John Lewis (own brand), and they don’t do matching dessert forks. I tried googling it just in case but nothing suitable came up. I really like this cutlery set (far more than any other I can find), and JL sell some dessert forks that are fairly similar, despite not exactly matching, so I may get those. It’s a pity, but seems better than getting an entire cutlery set that I like less just so that I can have matching dessert forks!

I don’t own any, but going back to my parents house and using their cake forks is one of the great delights of my life (3 prongs, I have never heard of pastry forks)

Just writing this down makes me realise I need to get out more.

We have some, but as dc1 is 2.5 he uses them as normal forks fairly regularly because all the toddler ones are too blunt to be of any use.