#custard Archives - The Fat Foodie

Fruit Custard Tarts by The Fat Foodie

Now that we’re starting to see a bit more sun on a daily basis thanks to the arrival of spring I’m finding myself more inclined to make desserts that incorporate lighter flavours, such as these fruit custard tarts. When I started eating dairy-free one of my best revelations to come from the vegan community was finding out that Bird’s Custard Powder doesn’t contain dairy. I found this really surprising, but I suppose it’s just because you expect such a sweet vanilla-based substance to be already creamy even before you add anything to it. Regardless, I’m grateful!

It feels a bit cheeky to be posting the recipe for these fruit custard tarts because they’re so easy to make, especially when I haven’t made my own custard, but they are really delicious so I figured I’d share it anyway. The pastry is very light and a bit crumbly, but I think that works very well with the sweet custard and berries.

It makes life so much easier if you bake the pastry in tart tins which have a removable base, but it’s not absolutely essential and you can just use a piece of greaseproof paper in the base to help take the pastry cases out of the tins instead. Also, don’t try to take the pastry cases out of the tins until they’re completely cold otherwise they’re more likely to break.

You can use any fruit you like in these tarts. I’d bought some raspberries and blueberries that were reduced to a ridiculously cheap price and that’s what I used, but you could make them more exotic by using coconut oil instead of butter for the pastry tarts and topping them with chunks of fresh pineapple. Whatever you choose to top them with, these fruit custard tarts are light, creamy and filled with flavour, perfect for dessert on a warm summer’s evening (or an optimistic Scottish spring night).

Ingredients for the tart cases:

70g gluten-free plain flour (I use Dove’s Farm G/F flour because it’s made with low FODMAP ingredients whereas many other gluten-free flours are made with high FODMAP options.)

30g ground almonds

1 tsp xanthan gum

20g caster sugar

3 tbsps rice milk

40g butter (or dairy-free version)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients for the custard filling:

80g Bird’s Custard Powder

40g sugar

1 pint (580ml) rice milk

Method:

Make the custard in accordance with the instructions on the pack and set it aside to cool.

To make the pastry for the tarts, put everything except the milk into a mixing bowl and rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers until it looks like fine sand.

Preparing the Dough for the Fruit Custard Tarts

Add the milk a little at a time, stirring all the while, until it forms a dough. (You might not need to use all of the milk. It can depend on the individual batch of flour you’re using.)

Preparing the Dough for the Fruit Custard Tarts

Set your tart tins out on a large baking tray and cut out two little squares of greaseproof paper for each tart that are big enough to line the base of your tart tins. (See the photo below if necessary.)

Preheat your oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F/Gas mark 6.

Put a piece of greaseproof paper in the bottom of each tart tin. Divide your dough into four and place a small lump of dough in each tart tin and mould to fit the tart tin.

Put another piece of greaseproof paper on top of the pastry and put baking beans on top.

Putting the Dough in the Tart Tins

Bake in the oven for 15 mins and then remove the baking beans and bake for another 10 mins (or until the pastry cases are golden brown). Leave the tarts to cool on a cooling rack.

Baked Tart Cases

When the tarts and custard are cold, fill each tart case with custard and top with fresh fruit. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.

Freshly Filled Fruit Custard Tarts by The Fat Foodie

Freshly Filled Fruit Custard Tarts by The Fat Foodie

Custard Creams by The Fat Foodie

Last Wednesday night was filled with joy for me because it heralded the return of The Great British Bake Off. I love Bake Off. I love its huge tent that I imagine must be filled with tantalising aromas of delicious bakes cooking all day long. I love its two hilarious presenters. I love its good cop/bad cop judging duo that is Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. But most of all I love watching the bakes that the contestants produce and the acknowledgement that sometimes a bake just simply doesn’t go to plan, however much you practice it. I think that, ultimately, it’s a show that reminds us that it doesn’t mean you’re a total failure if you make the odd mistake. But, maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe it’s just a show about cake.

This week the Bake Off bakers were faced with the challenge of making biscuits so I thought I’d share one of my favourite biscuit recipes with you. It’s a recipe for custard creams that I used to make with my Mum when I was a kid. Shop-bought custard creams never fill me with much joy. They’re too boring (being a stalwart of the biscuit tin when I was a kid) and rarely have the rich buttery, creamy taste that my adult palate has come to expect from a decent biscuit nowadays. However, these homemade custard creams are a different story from pre-packaged biscuits altogether.

The inclusion of Bird’s Custard Powder, with its fine-textured vanilla flavoured cornflour base, results in an incredibly crumbly and delicately textured biscuit while the use of real butter adds a sweet richness that could never be imparted through the use of margarine or baking fat. I like to add a little less plain flour than most custard cream recipes ask you to use, substituting the loss with cornflour. This results in melt-in-the-mouth buttery, crumbly biscuits sandwiching a sweet, light buttercream filling. In my opinion, they’re sheer perfect biscuit heaven.

This custard cream recipe is unbelievably quick and easy to make, especially if you chuck all of your ingredients into a food processor, but if you don’t have one it’s really easy to make them by hand. Either way, they’re well worth giving a go.

Ingredients:

For the biscuits:

100g butter (or non-dairy version)

80g gluten-free plain flour (I use Dove’s Farm G/F flour because it’s made with low FODMAP ingredients whereas many other gluten-free flours are made with high FODMAP options.)

20g cornflour

50g custard powder (I’d recommend using Bird’s)

50g sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the filling:

150g icing sugar

75g butter

1 tsp hot water

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas mark 6.

Line a flat baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Mix all of your ingredients together in a food processor or mixing bowl until it forms a ball.

Take heaped teaspoons of the biscuit mix and roll them into balls before placing them on the baking tray with a good space between each of them. (Don’t worry if you’ve got an unequal number of biscuits at the end, you’ll just need to eat the odd one out. It’s a hardship, I know.)

Flatten them slightly and then use the tines of a fork to make an impression on the top of them.

Bake for 10-15 mins or until they are lightly golden brown.

While they are baking, mix all of your icing ingredients together until blended.

Once the biscuits are cooked, let them cool and then sandwich them together with the buttercream icing.

Try not to eat too many at once.

Custard Creams by The Fat Foodie

The Fat Foodie

Making Low FODMAP Food Good!

Tag: #custard

Fruit Custard Tarts (makes 4)

Custard Creams (makes 8-10)