Pearce Duff's Chocolate Blancmange - 41g

Blancmange sits on the same shelf as custard powder and jelly crystals: the make-it-and-wait puddings of a British childhood. Chocolate is the flavour that got children to the table without being called twice.

People in Canada search for it by name because a blancmange is hard to explain to anyone who has never had one. It is not a mousse. It is not a pudding cup. It is a blancmange, and only the packet will settle the argument.

The 41g packet is small, light and flat, and it keeps happily in a dry cupboard until somebody decides it is a pudding sort of evening. Follow the pack, set it in a mould or a bowl in the fridge, and turn it out once it is firm. Plain is traditional. A spoonful of jam on the side is also traditional, depending on whose nan you ask.

It usually goes into the basket alongside the other British pudding staples, a tin of custard powder, a packet of jelly and something tinned for the top, which is more or less how a British cupboard has always worked.