Custard and “Jelly” Biscuits

These biscuits are a combination of my favourite things: lovely crumbly, almost melt-in-your-mouth custard biscuits, sandwiched with a raspberry buttercream.

There are some recipes, which hold a really nostalgic spot in our hearts (and tummies). This one is linked to these custard biscuits which my aunt used to bake for us growing up. To this day, I happily return from my trips to visit family in Durban, armed with a stash of these in my hand luggage.

I love dipping the custard biscuits into warm tea. Her version is a bit firmer than the one I share below, and a great conduit for soaking up the tea and softening the biscuit, whilst still leaving them slightly crumbly.

They are super simple to make and require only six ingredients, most of which will be readily available in your pantry. As a happy accident, they also do not require any eggs, so are perfect for those auspicious occasions when we are abstaining from eggs (and other meat).

My aunt’s version stops there – wonderful in its simplicity. I however wanted to take it a step further and wanted to modernise these humble custard morsels into a delicious sandwich cookie. I was cleaning out our cupboards the other day and came across boxes of jelly – one of Linsen’s ultimate childhood pleasures – served with a generous helping of UltraMel custard, of course! This gave me the idea to combine these custard biscuits with a “jelly” buttercream. Technically, us South African’s classify jelly’s very differently to American’s – and the filling is more of a jam, but I decided I liked the ring to the name so just went with it 🙂

I had some roasted strawberries at home, so I used them in the sandwiching too, but you can use a store bought jam of your choice. You could even make a vanilla buttercream, or leave it out completely. These biscuits are delicious, with or without being sandwiched. On making these again, I spotted a Rhubarb jam in the fridge which came all the way from Harrods in London, so I used that to fill these delicious biscuits.

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CUSTARD BISCUITS (Makes 15 Sandwich cookies)

• 200g salted butter, in 2cm cubes at room temperature
• 100g icing sugar (3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 160g cake flour (1 1/4 cup plus one tablespoon)
• 30g maizena/cornflour (1/4 cup)
• 70g custard powder (1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon)

METHOD

1. Cream the butter and sugar: Cream the butter, icing sugar and vanilla for about three to five minutes, until the mixture feels light and fluffly, and the butter turns a lighter shade of yellow.
2. Add in the dry ingredients: Then add in the flour, custard powder and cornflour. Add this in, in three batches and gently fold by hand. This ensures that the dough is nice and “short” (ie. giving you a buttery, crisp, melt-in-your-mouth feel) when baked.
3. Chill the dough: The dough will feel softer than a usual biscuit dough and that is fine. When you touch the dough, it should not stick to your hands. If it does, it may need a bit more flour. Add about two teaspoons at a time to ensure you do not add too much. Then place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up a bit, before rolling into balls.
4. Roll into balls and imprint: Once the dough has chilled for 30 minutes, roll them into 15 – 17g balls. They may initially feel too small, but they do spread a bit when baked. If you are using a cookie stamp, dust the stamp with a bit of flour and tap off any excess, then press the stamp onto the dough. You want to flatten the cookies slightly, but keep them at around 2mm thick once flattened. If you do not have a cookie stamp, simply use the prongs of a fork, dusting in a bit of flour.
5. Rest the biscuits in the fridge: To ensure that the imprint is visible once baked, it is important to bake the cookie from cold. Place the cookies on a baking tray, lined with baking paper if it is not non-stick, at least 4 centimeters apart. Let it rest in the freezer for a further 45 minutes, until the biscuits are hard to the touch.
6. Bake the custard biscuits: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius, with the rack in the middle of the oven. Bake each tray of biscuits for 8 – 10 minutes. Let the biscuits rest on the tray for 5 minutes, after they come out of the oven, then use a spatula to transfer them gently onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Once cooled, store in an airtight container. (Please read the storage instructions below for best results).
7. Storage: As these biscuits are quite short and buttery, they are optimally eaten two to three days after being made. If you want to increase the shelf life, or are baking them in advance I suggest that you store them well in an airtight container, closely packed together. Then store them in the fridge to prevent them from softening. They are best eaten at room temperature.

1. Divide the dough into 15g balls. You will end up with about 30 – 35 halves, which when sandwiched should give you around 15 biscuits.
2. Place the balls on the lined baking tray, spaced at least 3cm apart. The biscuits do spread slightly when baking.
3. Dip the back prongs of a fork in flour, dust off any excess flour, and press down onto each biscuit. Don’t flatten them too much, just enough to make an indentation. The height of the flattened cookies should be at least 1cm or even 1.25cm’s.
4. Bake for 20 minutes. You want the biscuits’ bottoms to be just set, but not brown too much and become dark. Start checking them at around 18 minutes – the exact time will depend on your oven.
5. Once baked, remove the biscuits from the oven and leave them to cool on the tray for 5 minutes – they will still be quite fragile to handle.
6. After the 5 minutes, place the biscuits on a cooling rack to cool completely. Only sandwich the cookies once completely cool.

BERRY BUTTERCREAM

• 30g salted butter at room temperature
• 60g icing sugar
• 1 Tablespoon raspberry/strawberry jam
• more jam, as needed to fill the center

METHOD

1. Cream the butter for 1 minute.
2. Add in the icing sugar and continue to cream for another minute.
3. Add in raspberry jam (or another berry jam) and mix until incorporated.
4. Once the biscuits are cooled, sandwich pairs of biscuits with buttercream. You can make a ring of buttercream around the biscuit, if you like and fill the center with more jam.

Recipe by adventureswithsugar.com