I love love love custard creams they are a total taste of childhood, I remember trying to sneak just one more biscuit without my parents noticing, when I was little. I wanted to see how hard it would be to recreate that classic flavour, its not a biscuit you ever seem to see for sale at bakeries or cafe’s so I assumed it would be difficult but I think these taste pretty damn spot on. The cookie was a little different though and its mainly because of one thing. If you look at the ingredients list on a pack from the supermarket the one thing your not likely to see is butter, as aren’t cookies and biscuits made with butter just better? I tend to not use oil or vegetable fats in my baking but commercial cookies and biscuits rarely use butter so there is a textural difference but I think its actually for the better.
Custard Creams
225g plain flour
50g custard powder
30g icing sugar
175g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Filling
50g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g icing sugar
2 tbsp custard powder
Edit: You may need a little milk
To make the biscuits place the flour, custard powder, icing sugar into the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add in the butter and vanilla bean paste andpulse until the mixture begins to come together (If the butter is very cold you may need to knead it together into a mass by hand). Tip the mixture out onto the worksurface and bring together into a uniform mass. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Place the dough on a floured worksurface and roll to a thickness of 3-4mm. Cut out small rounds about 3cm in diameter and dock with a fork. Place on a parchment lined baking tray and refrigerate for 15 minutes or until firm. Whilst chilling preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F. Bake the biscuits for 10 minutes or until just starting to colour around the edges. Cool on a wire rack.
For the filling place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy about 5 minutes then slowly incorporate the icing sugar and custard powder and beat in high until smooth and fluffy. Edit – some of you have had problems making a smooth buttercream so you may want to add a little milk to loosen slightly – dont add to much, this is meant to be quite stiff, to replicate the shop bought biscuits.
Place the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a small plain and pipe onto half of the biscuits sandwiching together with a second biscuit. Alternately use a knife to spread onto the biscuits.
© Edd Kimber
So so so so pretty! Like biscuity buttons
They look delicious – only problem is I would imagine they need to be eaten up quickly? Will the filling make them soft if left overnight? I think I’d end up eating the lot in one go – yum yum yum! Loving your blog x
Thanks for the comment Sue, the filling is a sugar/icing sugar buttercream so isnt very wet so doesn’t really affect the biscuits so they will be fine for a few days in a biscuit tin
I need you to stop posting yummy recipes…
You are making me fat(ter)!
I have a recipe very like this – with custard powder (though I don’t usually fill them) which is one of my most trusted infallible biscuit recipes – it’s from a Mr Men cookbook that I’ve had since I was probably 6
I think that my life may now be complete. Custard creams are the ultimate biscuit – but with butter too?! Drool.
Yummmmm! The Custard Cream is the King of the biscuit! Brilliant to find a great recipe for it, thank you!xx any chance of one for the Bourbon??
They are so neat and pretty!
*slobber*
These are just very pretty cookies! I can see why you’d want to sneak a few extra cookies. I like shortbread like cookies and the custard powder probably adds a nice flavor.
I have made Custard Creams in the past and they were only ok! Will give yours a go!
Thank you! X
Oooh, they do look good. I shall add them to my list of must-bakes
Oh my days, these look amazing!
My word these look gorgeous! I would never have thought of making custard creams but I bet they’re delicious. Bourbons next please..?
Yummy! These look lovely…might have to have a try! Thanks for sharing Edd. I watched you on ‘Perfect…Cake’ last night…all of those cakes looked fab….don’t know how you chose between them!x
Great sounding custard creams. I’m not a fan of the commerical ones as they don’t seem to have much in the way of real ingredients in there, but yours look and sound really good. I’ve just posted about making jammy dodgers and that was fun too.
My bet is that these taste a whole lot better than the ‘real’ things. Yum – will certainly be trying your recipe.
Edd, these look beautiful. Have you tried adding Nesquick to the cream filling? I recently made some melting moments with a banana and custard cream filling this way. Like banana milkshake but in a biscuit…
Hi Ed,
Just wondering how many biscuits the recipe makes?
the recipe makes about 30 of the small sized ones but you can always increase the size a little
They look fab. I have given custard creams a go before, and used the cheaper fat along with butter, and wasn’t keen atall.
Will give your recipe a go. Thanks.
these look so super
i would be so excited to try these! they would look super cute in heart or square shapes too!
Just made them and they look fab! Thanks so much
Edd, I just made these but I don’t know if I did the icing wrong? Mine went into a bread crumb like mixture, so I added some water, then some more icing sugar but now I am left with LOADS of extra icing! What did I do wrong??