Amazingly, the custard cream biscuit is the nation’s favourite. How do you eat yours?

A good cup of tea always comes with a good biscuit. And believe me, I know. I love both making tea and eating biscuits, having done a fair bit of both in my time. What’s more good biscuits have history, design and eating etiquette.

The custard cream biscuit is up there with the best of them. In fact in 2007, the humble custard cream was voted as UK’s favourite biscuit, with nine out of ten British people voting for it in a survey of 7000 people. You can’t say fairer than that.

History of Custard Creams

Originating in the UK in the early 1908, the custard cream soon became a staple in most households. A true custard cream consists of two layers of biscuit, sandwiching vanilla tasting custard powder. The layers are decorated with a baroque design, which is supposed to represent Victorian ferns which were in vogue back then. That’s fashion, not in the magazine.

They have also sparked outrage, such as when Tesco changed their recipe back in 2017. People took to social media to complain the new biscuits were no patch on the old ones, fell apart in tea didn’t taste as good. Tesco responded saying the new ones were healthier, but when has a biscuit eater ever worried about them being healthy?

Interestingly Custard Cream also turns out to be a strain of cannabis, so be careful if ordering online. That said the description given could equally apply to the custard cream biscuit and a cup of tea…

Custard Cream is a fairly decent day-time strain although some users can experience confusion from the cerebral effects. Total relaxation is also common.

Wikileaf

How to eat a Custard Cream Biscuit

There are many different ways to eat custard cream biscuits, which partly explains the appeal of what is after all a small biscuit. Heathens go for the all-in-one, crunched and swallowed approach. More fussy eaters split them apart, either licking off the cream layer or having one layer with and one without.

Somewhere in between these wild extremes lie normal people. These are the people who dunk, eat half and go back for seconds. Of course a custard cream can be eaten without a cup of tea, but it is widely recognised as one of the best dunking biscuit there is (finishing fourth in a study in the Independent).

The nice thing about a custard cream is that it’s almost a healthy snack. With only 57 calories you can have four of these little gems before you get to the calories in a Mars Bar. Result!

Making a Custard Cream Biscuit

They are quite easy to make, requiring:

• Biscuit
• Margarine/butter
• Flour
• Caster sugar
• Custard powder
• Drops of vanilla essence
• Filling
• Unsalted butter
• Icing sugar
• Custard powder
• Few drops of vanilla extract

These ingredients are all mixed together in a custard-cream-making sort of way and within 15 minutes you can have delightful home made biscuits. Actually, proper recipes abound on the Internet, and even Nigella Lawson has got in on the act with her sensual (non-standard) heart-shaped ones. Whatever you think of Nigella, she’s good for tea and biscuits.

Giant custard cream cakes cab take the biscuit

According to Wikipedia The largest custard cream in the world was made in November 2010, by Simon Morgan and Paul Thacker at Chino Latino’s restaurant in, Nottingham, England. Weighing in at over 15 kilograms, there was no cup big enough for it to be dunked in. Turns out size matters after all.

Custard cream cakes to impress

A custard cream cake could be the making of any party.

With Moldyfun’s exclusive giant custard cream mould, you make not be breaking the record for the world’s biggest custard cream, but you will be impressing your friends and relatives. You can view the recipe for making a cake version of your favourite biscuit at recipethis.com.

Moldyfun Silicone Cake Mould Dimensions: Custard cream: 21.3 cm (L) x 16 cm (W) x 10 cm (H)

Also published on: redundantmidlife.co.uk