Aoife Noonan: Make your own custard creams – it’s worth the effort

Tea and biscuits is an age-old perfect pairing. I am partial to a store-bought biscuit, I won’t lie, and I always steer back to the same ones: ginger-nut, bourbon, or Jammie Dodger. Those coconut ones that had the word “Nice” written on them were delicious, too, and at other times you can’t beat a digestive with cheese.

Making biscuits yourself may seem laborious, especially when there are so many different packs available; they even have their own aisle in the supermarket. But while shop-bought biscuits are nostalgic for me, some are too sweet, and full of ingredients I can’t even pronounce. I’m not disparaging shop-bought, however, and I won’t dare mention nutritional content (or lack thereof); this is a baking column, after all. But have you ever tried to recreate one of your own favourites?

Biscuits have their place; they are a quick fix when you have a hankering for something sweet, and these custard creams couldn’t be easier. Soft, shortbread-like biscuits laced with soothing custard flavour are sandwiched together with a simple custard buttercream for a delicious dose of nostalgia.

I am using custard powder in both the biscuit and the filling here. It is the easiest and most straightforward way to inject that gentle custard flavour into your biscuits. It also gives a slight pop of yellow colour to the dough and filling.

Custard creams

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These biscuits are a little different to shop-bought – they are less sweet but softer and creamier. You can buy stamps for biscuits to give them that classic custard design etched on to them. But here I’ve used an embossed rolling pin to give the dough texture with a very faint pattern on top. If using an embossed rolling pin, roll out your dough using a standard rolling pin to the thickness required, then roll over it once with the embossed rolling pin to get a perfect pattern, cut out the biscuits, then bake them.

These are basic custard creams but they can be easily jazzed up by adding a little lemon or orange zest in the dough or filling. Try a little rhubarb compote, your favourite jam or a drizzle of caramel sauce in the centre of the cream filling before sandwiching the biscuits together.

The finished biscuits will keep fresh for two to three days in an airtight container, or they can be frozen if you prefer.

Recipe: Custard creams