Custard creams are one of those biscuits that are so often overlooked, elbowed out in a cloud of crumbs by the other more extrovert biscuits that litter the everyday treat plate. You’ve got to feel for them. How can the mild, nursery sweet, creamy sandwich compete against the likes of the dark edgy bourbon?? Or, the popular, leader-of-the pack chocolate digestive? The stickily seductive jammy dodger? The stylish and elegant Viennese finger?
These other teatime treats may be more fashionable and embellished, but sometimes, simplicity is the comfort that you’re looking for with a soothing cup of tea. Especially when they are homemade and so vastly improved. Real butter makes all the difference. A life without butter is undoubtedly puritanical, but like a broken pencil, it’s also decidedly pointless.
These crumbly golden discs were sandwiched together with a sweet, mellow buttercream, buttercup yellow, and all too easy to swipe straight from the bowl. You would never say they tasted of custard; what the custard powder adds is a background hum, a sweetness that doesn’t come from sugar, a flavor that you can’t quite put your finger on. Those little dots circling each disc? Yes, I did them..by hand..with a skewer. What I haven’t shown are the ones I got bored of and decided to aggressively poke at random, creating a unique pointillist pattern. Extremely artistic. You may also notice that there isn’t any tea in the patterned blue mug. That’s because I didn’t put any in.
Tea with no tea
Custard Creams
Makes 14
Ingredients
For the biscuits
- 175g plain flour
- 3 tbsp custard powder
- 1tsp baking powder
- 100g butter
- 3 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp milk
For the custard buttercream
- 1 tbsp custard powder
- 100g icing sugar
- 50g soft unsalted butter
- 1 tsp boiling water
Preheat oven to 180°c.
To make the biscuits, put the flour, custard powder and baking powder into a processor and pulse to mix. Add the butter, cut into smallish cubes and pulse to cut into the flour to create a crumbly mixture. Tip in the sugar and pulse again. Beat the egg and milk together. Pour down the funnel of the processor with the engine running until it clumps into a ball. Form the dough into a ball and press down into a fat disc, wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 4mm. Dip a 5cm cutter (whatever shape you like) in flour and cut out your shapes. You need an even number of shapes to sandwich together. Prick the outside edge of each shape all the way around on one side with a skewer. Cook on a lined baking sheet for 15 minutes, and then leave to cool before sandwiching them together.
To make the custard cream, put the custard powder and icing sugar into the processor and pulse briefly to combine and de-lump. Add the butter and blitz together until you get a smooth cream. Add the tsp of boiling water and pulse again. Sandwich each biscuit with about 1tsp of custard cream by gently spreading a layer of cream over the unpricked side of a biscuit and then squishing a matching biscuit on top of it.