custard creams – a recipe for my daughters

Since they were small, my daughters have loved to bake and recently they decided they wanted to bake custard creams.  Besides, who doesn’t love a custard cream, a sandwich biscuit with a distinctive yellow hue? Without a doubt, this is baking at it’s most simple, in short ideal for baking with children.  First of all we looked out my recipe, however we found it was merely a list of ingredients with no instruction whatsoever. My daughters are more than capable of following a simple recipe, even so this was far from a recipe!

Despite the lack of a recipe, the girls were determined and therefore carried on! Once the biscuits were in the oven, my eldest asked “Can you please put this recipe on your blog, then next time I know where to find it?” At that moment it hit me, they are a different generation, hence my daughters use the blog as their reference. Consequently, there will be no scribbled notes for them, with such a vast variety of recipes available online. As a result, this got me pondering a lovely thought, aside from sharing recipes that everyone can enjoy, this blog is a recipe book for my children. Finally, all the recipes we cook at home in one place, where formerly they’ve been either handwritten notes, or ideas in my head!

Custard creams always remind me of baking with my own Mum, in particular around this time of year. My Mum always made these for my sisters and I to enjoy over Christmas. I was never keen on blending the butter and sugar together, after all we didn’t have a fancy mixer, instead it was a bowl and a wooden spoon. Nevertheless we loved baking and it’s a love that’s stayed with me. To conclude, this is my Mum’s recipe, and it makes these biscuits just the way I like them.

custard creams

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Serves

14-16

Ingredients

• 12 oz butter (softened)
• 4 oz icing sugar
• 4 oz custard powder
• 12 oz self raising flour

basic butter icing

• 5 oz butter (softened)
• 10 oz icing sugar

Directions

Cream together the icing sugar and butter, when well combined, stir through the custard powder and the flour. This should form a stiff ball of well combined dough, take care not to overwork the dough, only bring it together.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take a teaspoon of the dough and roll it into a ball and place it on a baking sheet. Use a fork to press down the top of each ball of dough - don't press too hard. Leave sufficient space between each ball to allow the biscuits to spread in the oven.

When done place the custard creams into an oven at 180C/160CFan for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and place the biscuits on a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile mix together the icing sugar and butter to make the butter icing.

Once the biscuits have cooled spread some butter icing between two biscuits and allow to the icing to set. Store the sandwiched biscuits in an air-tight container.