Cookies

Custard Cream Hearts

2/12/2005 07:17:00 PM

So it’s Valentine’s Day on Monday. And knowing me, of course I’m not celebrating it romantically (hah), but only culinarily. In the “Valentine’s Day” chapter of Feast, there are three sweet treat recipes – Love Buns, a Chocolate Raspberry Heart cake and Custard Cream Hearts. Given that I don’t think I need any more chocolate right this minute, and that I’m saving the Love Buns for a gay dinner party, I decided to make the Custard Cream Hearts.

In her description of the cookies, Nigella says that these custard creams have been “hitherto… only known in its packet form”, and that through baking them, you experience a Wildean thing, “reproducing artifice by more natural means”. I have had Arnott’s custard creams before, and loved them. However, after making these biscuits, I realised that they bear much more resemblance to those Yo-Yo biscuits that I used to bake as a little girl. So, for me, baking these was more a nostalgic trip rather than any sort of postmodern self-aware exercise in intellectualism…

Custard Creams are more British than Australian, so I suppose that if they were more popular in Australia I’d probably get the full Wildean experience upon baking these… maybe if I tried making Tim Tams or Mint Slices I’d get the right idea.

Anyhow, they’re just plain butter biscuits, made with the addition of custard powder, and sandwiched together with a custard-powdered buttercream. They’re crumbly, “frangible” and very very yummy! (With no bicarby fuzzy tongue taste… heh heh heh…) They're the first things I've made with my new Nigella Lawson's Living Kitchen cookie cutters. And despite some negative feedback from other forum-members, I found the heart cutter a breeze to use!


Cookie halves cooling on rack


My Custard Cream Hearts (recipe in the background)

The recipe makes 14 biscuits (i.e. 28 single hearts sandwiched together), which is entirely appropriate for Valentine’s Day. HOWEVER, seeing as there are four in my family and two whole days to go… they might not last until then!

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