Custard Slices

I like love custard. Warm custard over a warm baked pudding reminds me of home. I think it is a comfort thing. Custard slices remind me of home too. It used to be my responsibility, on a Sunday morning, to whip up a batch of custard slices for my family to enjoy after our morning church meeting. Back then, I would use cream cracker biscuits as the "crust"(if you can even call it that!) and make a custard with custard powder, milk and some cornflour to thicken it. But I decided to tweak the original recipe a bit (ok fine, a lot) for this batch.

 Instead of using cream crackers, I decided on using some ready-made puff pastry. I cut it onto rectangles, probably about 90mm by 70mm, but just because this allowed me to get 8 nice size rectangles out of the roll of pastry - the size is totally up to you. You could even cut out cute pastry shapes with a cookie cutter (which really appeals to me, but I just didn't have time for that with this batch). I brushed some beaten egg on the rectangles and baked them until they had "puffed" and had started to turn golden brown. I whipped them out of the oven and let them cool on the baking tray.

 While all of this was happening, I started on the custard. As I had mentioned, I had always made the custard part as per the instructions on the jar, but added some cornflour to thicken it. BUT then it came to me (after botching up a pot full of custard by being impatient overly eager,  I just kept adding a bit of extra powder when it didn't thicken quick enough. It turned out extra extra thick, you could mould it like jelly!) Why use extra cornflour, when you can just make a fourth option of  EXTRA THICK by adding just a teeny tiny bit MORE of that darn good yellow powder!

So that is just what I did!

Just one other deviation from the instructions (yes, I know, I do try follow them but usually get side tracked) instead of adding the sugar, I poured in a 1/3 of a can of condensed milk. YUM!

I made it using the microwave method, and from a thin milky mixture to a thick custard, it took about 7 minutes. Super fast and super easy!

While the custard cooled slightly, I turned my attention back to the pastry. I made an easy version of royal icing by mixing some icing sugar with some boiling water until a nice pouring consistency was reached and smeared it on the bottom half so the whole side was covered and then drizzled it over the top half.

Then I spooned the slightly cooled custard (although it was still pretty hot) into a plastic piping bag, snipped off the tip (no nozzle needed) and pipped the custard onto the bottom half of the pastry.

 Then I popped on the top half...

...and left them to cool and allow the custard to set before we gobbled them up!

I think the whole process took about 30min, not bad for a quick and easy treat!

I think next time I will try heart shaped custard slices! That little bit of extra effort always goes a long way!

I totally made this up as I was going along - so I have no real, set measurements etc, but these are, as far as I can remember the steps and measurements I used:


For the pastry:

1 roll ready-made puff pastry
1 egg
1 cup icing sugar
a little boiling water

• Cut the pastry into rectangles (or any other shape) keeping the numbers even (you need two per slice!)
• Brush with some beaten egg and bake at 180 degrees Celsius until just turning golden brown
• Make some royal icing by mixing a bit of water with the icing sugar, ONE TEASPOON AT A TIME, until you JUST reach a running consistency. (If you pour it, it wont be thick like gloop, but it wont just run either. It should slowly make a nice ribbon consistency)
• Cover the one side of the bottom piece of pastry with the icing 
• Drizzle some icing over the top piece of pastry

For the custard:

4 1/2 tablespoons Custard Powder
1/3 can of Condensed Milk
2 cups Milk

• Mix all the ingredients together 
• Microwave on high for about 7 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes
• When a thick consistency is reached, let it cool for a couple of minutes
• Pipe or spoon custard onto the bottom piece of the pastry
• Put the top piece on top of the custard and leave to cool for a few minutes
• Place in the fridge to chill for and hour and serve

Custard Slices Printable Recipe 

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