This is a Nigella Lawson recipe from her book Feast.  I love that book.  I have made a few recipes from it, all sweets and they have all been very good.  This is one that we have made quite a few times.  I like custard creams but I find the commercial ones a bit too sweet, that is why I like this recipe it isn’t too sweet and they go nicely with a cup of tea.

This is the picture from the book and the recipe, which is quite easy and only a few ingredients.

This is a European cookbook so the measurements are in grams.

The oven needs to be preheated to gas mark 4 or 180C, which I think is 350F.  I always have to google the conversion.

Of course we had our trusty guard dog and helper close by.

For the biscuits you put 175g flour, 3TBSP custard powder ( I like either Bird’s or Horne’s brand), and 1tsp baking powder into a food processor and pulse to mix.  Add 50g of unsalted butter ( I used salted because that is what I had) cut into to cubes as shown below, along with 50g of vegetable shortening.

Pulse these into the flour mixture to make a crumbly mixture.

Tip in 3TBSP of caster sugar (that is a fine grain sugar) and pulse again.

In a small bowl beat 1 egg with 1 tbsp of milk and pour that down the funnel of the food processor and run to make the dough.  Be careful and go slow for this step.  I used it all but the recipe note says that you may not need all of it, so just go slow to make sure your dough isn’t too wet.

Keep going until you get a dough, you may have to add an extra small dribble of milk to get the dough to come together.

Pat it into a disk

Wrap in plastic wrap

Refridgerate for about 30 minutes.

Then roll out to about 4mm thick and cut into shapes.  We used hearts and circles.

Poking the decorative holes, as shown in the book

Bake for about 15 minutes

All baked

While the baked cookies are cooling make the custard cream frosting.

The frosting is simply:

1TBSP custard powder, 50g butter, 100g icing sugar and 1 tsp boiling water. Add the first three ingredients into bowl and mix wit electric mixer until blended then add the boiling water and blitz until creamy and smooth.  You could also use food processor for the frosting as well.

Put a coat of frosting on a cookie and stick another one on top of that one to make a sandwich.

Just like this

and here we have a little bowl licking…literally.

It is finally March….maple syrup month.  We are planning a trip to a sugar bush soon and have been busy looking through our maple recipes!