Homemade Custard Creams (How to Woo a Brit)
Homemade custard creams cookies are so much better than the store-bought variety. These classic British biscuits literally melt in your mouth.
These custard creams are the most delicious, “melt in your mouth” cookie you’ll probably ever have!
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It’s pretty amazing to me, how almost every single Brit I know (especially ex-pats) become ecstatic over certain types of iconic British food, including savories, sweets, candy, and yes, even junk food.
Quintessential British Food
In fact, there are two Facebook pages that I follow which are devoted solely to British food: Quite Peckish and Fat Englishman. One of these pages will post a photo like the one below, and the frenzied comments begin with “Oh, I miss my ___ so much!” or “I’d kill for a ____!” and proclamations of adoration for one candy bar or another.
People will get into heated arguments about which type of biscuit (cookie) or beverage is better–it’s rather funny, actually, and it even happens on another British Facebook group I belong to which has nothing to do with food!
The reason I’m telling you this is that it seems that we are all extremely fond of the foods that we grew up with, and I think part of the reason is because they hold strong memories of our youth. For those of us now in the US, I must say, British chocolate is definitely a lot better than the average American candy bar, which isn’t even allowed to be considered real chocolate in some places (due to the lack of enough cocoa butter).
You could mention some iconic biscuits to an ex-pat Brit and almost bring them to tears, such as Jammy Dodgers, Penguin bars, bourbon biscuits and custard creams, which mean absolutely nothing to most Americans or any non-Brit. As a matter of fact, I’ve learned that they are referred to as custard cookies in the US.
What are Custard Creams?
Custard creams are cookies (US equivalent to our biscuits) that Brits buy at the supermarket, much the same as Americans would buy Oreos. They’re a classic, along with the others I named above. They are made with Birds Custard Powder, which is another British classic. This is the typical pattern when you buy them from the grocery store in the UK, however the photo below is mine (homemade) using a special biscuit stamp/cutter! How cool is that?
What is the Custard in Custard Creams?
The custard in custard creams refers to Bird’s custard powder, and it is only used in making the dough. It is NOT used in the filling (given that it is flavored corn starch, it should be cooked before eating).
What is Bird’s Custard Powder and do I Need it for Custard Creams?
This is essentially a vanilla flavored corn starch which gives the custard creams their melt-in-your-mouth quality. Custard powder was invented during the war when whole foods were in short supply, so Britons could make their beloved custard without eggs. It became a favorite and everyone still uses it. In order to make these classic Custard Creams, I wouldn’t recommend it without Bird’s Custard Powder. They just won’t taste the same (do not use the kind in the paper packet).
Sorted Food
Recently, I met and had dinner with the SORTED Food guys (Mike, Jamie, Ben and Barry), four friends from England who have huge following their YouTube food channel and who were passing through LA on their #lostandhungry tour.
A “rule” during their travels is that they can’t eat anything that isn’t suggested or given to them, so I knew they’d appreciate a “taste of home”, and surprised them with Penguin chocolate bars, and a packets of HP Sauce (a very popular British steak sauce which I happen to carry in my purse).
The Custard Cream’s partner in crime: Bourbon Biscuits!
Mind you, they’d only left home a week before, but you can see the look of happiness and excitement on each of their faces as soon as they spotted the Penguin bars!
Given this phenomenon with British people, I’m going to give you a recipe which will allow you to surprise and delight any of your ex-pat friends from the UK, which is a recipe for custard creams. Do you need to be from the UK to appreciate these wonderful biscuits (cookies)? Absolutely not, because they are so crunchy, yet creamy (melt in your mouth) and deliciously tasty, you’ll be a fan after your very first bite. I bet you a Penguin bar, you will!
*Edited 3/2017: my daughter knows me so well and bought me these biscuit cutters for Christmas! They work perfectly to make each of four classic British biscuits in their iconic shapes. It includes cutters for custard creams, bourbon biscuits, Jammy Dodgers and Party Rings. Click here to buy them on Amazon.
Custard creams can be a part of your holiday baking as they make a great choice for cookie swaps. Check out this list of 60 Christmas cookie ideas which includes custard creams.
Reader, Andrea Hampton, made them into Easter themed biscuits using this adorable bunny mold, too!
Custard Creams Recipe
recipe from an old Lofty Peak cookbook makes 2 to 3 dozen depending on the shape/size
FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE BELOW
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
Make the Custard Creams Biscuits
Sift the flour, custard powder and baking soda into a bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes, then add the sifted flour, custard and soda and mix well.
Roll or Cut the Biscuits (depending on if you have the biscuit stamps or not)
Form into rounds, about the size of a walnut. Place on a lined baking tray, leaving room to expand. Press with a fork into the top of each round, twice: once horizontally, and once vertically, to look like a cross-hatch.
NOTE: if using the biscuit cutters mentioned above, roll out the dough to about ¼” thick, on a lightly floured surface, instead.
Dust a litte flour into the stamp/cutter, then press the custard cream cutter into the dough.
Push down.
Release, and gently remove the biscuit, shaking the cutter a little if necessary.
Ta dah! Repeat to use all the dough, continue to dust with flour if needed.
Place on parchment paper or a silicone lined baking tray.
Bake near the middle of the oven for 15 to 18 minutes. The cutter style may only need 14 minutes or so, until the bottoms just begin to slightly color. Remove from tray and allow to cool completely on cooling rack.
Make the Custard Creams Filling
Mix the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until creamy (you may need to add a few drops of milk if you want to pipe the filling).
Next, use the buttercream to sandwich two of the custard creams together. Use a piping bag if you really want perfect results, but you really can just spread the filling with a knife, as well.
Repeat until all the biscuits have been filled.
I like to match up evenly sized biscuits (the rolled ones) before starting to sandwich them together.
And, the final biscuit cutter custard cream. Which do you prefer?
You’ll love the buttery, custard flavor, and the crispiness of the biscuit. However, just wait until it melts in your mouth!
Store in an airtight container for up to a week. Most people in the UK have some sort of biscuit tin.
I bet they don’t last even half that long! (Here’s a cute apron with the same text as my tea towel!)
Homemade Custard Creams (How to Woo a Brit)
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cup flour all purpose (plain)
- ½ cup custard powder (Bird’s Custard Powder-available on Amazon and in British shops)
- 6 oz butter good quality, salted, room temperature
- ½ cup powdered sugar (icing sugar)
- ¼ tsp baking soda
Filling
- 1 oz butter good quality, room temperature
- ½ cup powdered sugar (icing sugar)
- 4 drops vanilla extract
- ½ tsp milk more or less as needed for desired consistency
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
- Sift the flour, custard powder and baking soda into a bowl and set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes, then add the sifted flour, custard and soda and mix well.
- Form into rounds, about the size of a walnut and place on a lined baking tray, leaving room to expand. Press with a fork into the top of each round, twice: once horizontally, and once vertically, to look like a cross-hatch.
- Bake near the middle of the oven for 15 to 18 minutes until the bottoms just begin to slightly color. Remove from tray and allow to cool completely on cooling rack.
- Mix the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until creamy.
- Then use the buttercream to sandwich two of the custard creams together. Repeat until all the biscuits have been coupled.
- Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
Notes
- This recipe makes 15 custard creams (30 single biscuits sandwiched together.)
Nutrition
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Have you tried using your own custard powder. I read online that you can make your own since it is a bit expensive is USA. I read the ingredients for the birds one and it seems about the same. Vanilla sugar, milk powder and corn starch are the basic ingredients. They use some coloring in birds but I see no need for it. Just curious if you had tried and if the results are as good.
I haven’t and won’t try it as I know the flavor from Bird’s is unique, probably from whatever type of vanilla they use. It’s come down in price so much that there’s really no need to anymore.
Just curious, in my knowledge of weights and measures, 1/2 cup equals 4 oz. your recipe calls for 1/2 cup (or 2 oz). Should it be 1/2 cup or should it be 2 oz? Perhaps that’s why one of the reviewers above had a very crumbly mixture.
This is the problem with people using cups, Sharon: getting volume and mass mixed up. 4 oz of feathers and 4 oz of lead marbles are always 4 oz. 1/2 cup of feathers and 1/2 a cup of lead marbles do not weigh the same at all. Take half a cup of sugar, powdered sugar, flour and custard powder and then weigh each one, you are guaranteed to get a different weight for each of those (possibly the powdered sugar and custard powder would be close). CUPS ARE SIMPLY NEVER ACCURATE. Yes, if the reader mixed up weight and volume, that could be the reason for the crumbly mixture. I urge everyone to buy scales. They are under $10 on Amazon; so worth it.
Omg Preach on the volume and mass thing. To explain this a bit differently when people are talking about a cup being 8 oz. they are talking about fluid ounces not weight ounces. Also the only item that would weigh 8 oz if it was exactly a cup is water. There may be things that are close. It is an argument I have had with my mother many times. There is a very old saying “a pint is a pound the world around” that my mother likes to throw around at me. The problem is that is only try for water. If you have a pint of water and a pint of mercury or melted gold do you think it would weigh only a pound? If so I will take your pint of gold for the price of one pound please. things weight differently based on their molecular weight so there is no generalization like this.
Next point is that when you fill a measuring cup with stuff there is a dry cup and liquid cup. The flattish type is for dry ingredients and the glass jug type is for liquid.
Lastly if you fill the measuring cup 10 times you are likely to get 10 different weights. If you scoop up flour into the cup and level it off it is likely to have more than if you spoon it into the cup and level off. That is why most professional bakers use scales because they are the same more often. Personal note I prefer to weigh in grams because it is a smaller unit of measure where as ounces seems to have a bigger margin of error. Most Americans hate the metric system but it is more accurate. I’m not 100% used to it because I am an American but I still believe it is a better system and we should switch
OMG, I love this!! Yes, yes, and yes! I grew up using lbs and ounces so I started adding my recipes that way, but have been slowly switching them to grams simply to be more accurate and I’ve discovered many people have scales that no longer have lbs and ounces as an option. So happy you’re on the same page, Elizabeth!
I actually wish you’d update the recipe to use metric measures as they are more universal and precise. I had to switch my scale to OZ for this recipe and find it difficult to read as it switches to LBs at some point. Anyway, I made using your recipe by weight and they turned out perfectly.
I TOTALLY agree, Virginia, and am actually switching all my recipes which still have English measurements over to metric (that’s what I was doing when I first started my site), but since I’m a “one-woman-band”, it’s hard to do everything I need/want to do as well as creating new content, recipes, as well as the travel I do, so I hope you’ll be patient with me. Very happy to comply with anyone asking for metric, as it’s such a lovely thing to see vs. others who are upset with weight and want volume (cups) which are so inaccurate.
Actually, a cup is supposed to be 16 ounces, not 8 ounces. 8 ounces is 1/2 cup.
Cheryl, I don’t know where you pulled this information, but I would advise you to ditch the cups and buy a scale. You could truly benefit from them. Good luck.
There are 8 oz in a cup and 16 Tbsps in a cup. You have gotten these two confused.
Omg just made these little biscuits.they are heaven .they just melt on your tongue.so easy to make .my husband made a cup of coffee while I put the filling on as he couldn’t wait to try them .they were so nice we ate the lot .im now off to make another batch for my family and of course me and hubby. I may try some almond extract.think they will taste great.also may dip half in chocolate. Yum yum lol
Oh goodness! I can’t believe you ate the whole batch! haha! Love it! Thanks, Sandra! (Please click the 5 stars above the print button above) Thank you!
Can the custard cream be frozen without the filling or also with the filling
Yes, I’m sure it’s fine with and without. I usually never freeze them as they last for a couple of weeks in a tin. :)
Just a quick question and to share that I found Birds at Krogers if anyone else is having a hard time just ask them I imagine it was in the baking aisle but can not remember . I hope that helps . My question is, would it change anything to add red or green food coloring for Christmas to the filling? How about a drop or 2 of peppermint ?
That’s good to know, Katherine!
No, the food coloring is absolutely fine, but I don’t think peppermint would go with the custard flavor. That said, I’ve never tried it! So if you want to give it a try, add some to a little bit of the filling and test it out before doing an entire batch! Enjoy and let us know how it tastes!
Hiya! I just got finished with my attempt and my battery was REALLY crumbly. I has to press it into balls and the cross-hatch was impossible as they fell apart. Any ideas where I misstepped??
Oh dear, it must have been a mis-measurement for it to be that off. Did you weigh the ingredients? That’s the safest thing to do to ensure good results. Hopefully they were still edible?
Can I freeze custard creams the family all like them and I would make a bigger batch if they could
Absolutely, they freeze beautifully, Michael!
If I have Bird’s Original Custard Powder (not vanilla flavored) can I use that for this recipe?
Hi Sue, not sure where you’re seeing vanilla flavored powder? Then ingredient list specifies Bird’s custard powder (which is what you have.) You’re good to go! CC
hi Christina – so am from the UK and we have both Birds Custard Powder, and Birds Instant custard powder. These are two different products. The instant powder just needs water to make Custard while custard powder needs milk & sugar.
I know this is 2 years after the original comment, but wanted to make sure that anyone reading this knows that the recipe above uses a specific product.
Thanks!
Thanks, Sam. Bird’s Instant isn’t really available in the US, and I think most Brits know to use the normal custard powder, but thank you for your tip! :)