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I'm struggling to translate a word in my language that refers to a common cooking/mixing issue, but is very hard to search for translation, as we use a metaphorical word.

When you are creating some smooth creme - be it pudding, creme, glue mixture, whatever else - sometimes you mess up, and the texture will be inhomogeneous. There will be denser chunks, God forbid chunks with dry powder enclosed within them, floating in your creme, that are often really hard to get rid of. Their size can be anything, from a few millimeters to the size of a coin.

What do you call these denser chunks?

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    what's the word in your native language?
    – Vickel
    Commented Dec 31, 2021 at 0:59
  • @Vickel Gucsa (Hungarian), which is also a word in traditional dialect for a kind of traditional pasta generally called galuska.
    – Neinstein
    Commented Dec 31, 2021 at 1:07
  • 5
    Sunday dinner in my childhood: Mother: do you want gravy? Me: yes please. Mother: one lump or two?
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Dec 31, 2021 at 17:04
  • 2
    Maybe a 'glob' although those tend to be conglomerations of liquid, not lumpy bits of dry
    – Richard
    Commented Dec 31, 2021 at 19:33
  • "experience" acquired as part of the learning process.
    – Criggie
    Commented Jan 2, 2022 at 4:42

3 Answers 3

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Lumps. The pudding itself is lumpy.*

For instance, this recipe tip site observes

Custard is a delicious accompaniment to any pudding—but has your custard ever turned out lumpy?

What went wrong? How do you stop the lumps forming in the first place? Or if they do pop up, how do you get rid of them?

*There is apparently a recipe known as "lumpy pudding," but I have always seen it used to mean a pudding with lumps that are not desired.

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denser chunks, with dry powder enclosed within them, floating in your creme, that are often really hard to get rid of

those enclosures of bits of flour or similar are called

Clumps/Lumps in the dough/pudding/etc...

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  • enclosures of bits of flower?? Surely, you mean bits of flour.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 31, 2021 at 21:41
  • @Lambie oops... corrected, thanks for pointing it out, happy new year!
    – Vickel
    Commented Dec 31, 2021 at 21:47
  • :) To you as well. [filler]
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 31, 2021 at 21:51
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Curdle or curds may apply.

Technically, curds are the lumps of milk proteins that form when milk goes sour or during cheese making, but less literally, curdling has connotations of lumpy spoilage/ruination that could apply to the situation you are describing.

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