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CUSTARD CREAMS As promised, here is @autumnrosewell's recipe for Custard Creams. Her *actual* recipe book looks like this, so we've retyped it (minus hedgehog doodles) into the thread below! 
For the biscuit bit you will need:
250g French salted butter, at room temperature
75g Icing sugar, sifted
25g Caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste
100g Custard powder
225g of plain flour
Some baking trays and some parchment or greaseproof paper
A cooling rack
250g French salted butter, at room temperature
75g Icing sugar, sifted
25g Caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste
100g Custard powder
225g of plain flour
Some baking trays and some parchment or greaseproof paper
A cooling rack
For the bit in the middle you can have..
Either a buttercream:
125g French salted butter
50g Icing Sugar
50g Custard powder
half a teaspoon of vanilla paste
Or a ganache
100ml double cream
150g white chocolate
half a teaspoon of vanilla (make it the day before so it can set)
Either a buttercream:
125g French salted butter
50g Icing Sugar
50g Custard powder
half a teaspoon of vanilla paste
Or a ganache
100ml double cream
150g white chocolate
half a teaspoon of vanilla (make it the day before so it can set)
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 2 / 150 degrees or 130 for a fan oven / or put the rack on the base of the lower right shelf in an AGA.
Beat the butter and both sugars, with the vanilla until soft, pale and fluffy. Then beat it a bit more - the butter mixture needs to be really soft for this one. (French butter has a higher butterfat content than other butters, so it is creamier, but any butter will do!)
Add the custard powder and beat well until it is all mixed well, and a pale shade of Naples yellow. (Did you know that the paint called Naples Yellow is the oldest known chemically-created pigment? It's a lovely colour, one of my favourites, do look it up!)
Slowly add the flour until your dough is firm - you need a firm dough that doesn't stick to your hands or the bowl.
Roll out the dough to about 4mm , so reasonably thin (bear in mind that your biscuits will be double, so a smaller cookie cutter works best).
Roll out the dough to about 4mm , so reasonably thin (bear in mind that your biscuits will be double, so a smaller cookie cutter works best).
Carefully lift your cut out biscuits onto a tray lined with parchment, and pop them in the fridge to chill, preferably overnight. The firm and chilled dough helps the biscuit hold its shape when the butter melts in the oven. And biscuits do like to chill out with their friends.
When you're ready to bake, put one tray at a time into the oven. All ovens are different, so keep and eye on your biccies. I bake mine for 6 minutes and then turn the tray and bake for another 5, until they start to go a deeper shade of Naples yellow.
I recommend that while the biscuits are baking you do a dance - my son and I have our own little dance for when cakes are cooking; we've noticed that when we don't do it, the cake doesn't turn out so well. Ours is like the TikTok footdance, but done badly, with lots of giggling.
Let them cool in their tray for a few minutes - new-born biscuits are very soft and fragile. Carefully put your biccies onto a rack and let them cool completely. Read them a story to keep them entertained while they cool, but NOT The Gingerbread Man - that frightens them!
If you want to make the buttercream filling, which is the easiest by far, you literally just pop all the ingredients into a bowl and beat them together until nice and fluffy. It helps if you sing quietly while you're doing it.
If you'd like a small challenge you can make the ganache - a ganache is like the soft bit inside a chocolate. This is a white chocolate ganache. OK, so heat the cream and vanilla paste until it is boiling. Meanwhile chop the chocolate into tiny bits and tip it into a bowl.
When you make chocolates you don't melt the chocolate, you let the hot cream do that. Our cream is infused with vanilla. Take the cream off the heat when boiled and slllloooowwwly pour it onto the chopped chocolate, stirring carefully to melt the chocolate.
Chocolate melts at a very low temperature. Cocoa butter melts below body temperature - which is why cocoa butter feels cool on your skin. Anyway, a good White chocolate is basically just cocoa butter, vanilla and sugar, so it will melt fast.
Keep stirring until it is not at all lumpy, and leave it to set. If you didn't read the tweet through first and didn't do this bit the day before, don't panic or be cross with yourself, just pop it in the fridge. When it is set, you can whip it into a cloud of fluffy vanilla 
Put a blob of your chosen filling into one biccie and then squish another one on top. Dust them with icing sugar to make them look pretty. If you have more biccies than you can eat, take some to a neighbour or post some to a friend. Everyone likes biscuit post!
