Custard Creams, Custard Dreams

Love me Tender & Tardivo

I love this slightly wonky heart. Much like my own

Valentine’s Day, 2025

I have mixed feelings about Valentine’s day, as I do about almost every other thing in the world. I am happy to have an excuse to make what feels like ‘romantic’ food (risotto – I firmly believe risotto is a dish that should be made exclusively for two) anything pink, a blood orange panna cotta, anything with artichokes or wild asparagus (both in season here and both – so they say – aphrodisiacs. I cannot testify to this personally, but I love them).

When I was a child Valentine’s day always included a card from both my Mum (pretending to be a mystery admirer. She would make a friend post it so it had a different postmark on. She would even fake the handwriting) and my Dad, signed from himself and the dog (paw print neatly biro-ed next to his name). Some years Lorenzo has brought flowers, sometimes a branch of my favourite flower of all, almond blossom.

Almond blossom, like a dog rose/cherry blossom hybrid. Perhaps my favourite flower. Smells like honey.

This year we have both been so busy that we sort of jointly deliberately forgot about it, and then felt a bit sad and sheepish that we hadn’t done anything to celebrate, and so on Sunday I made some heart-shaped biscuits and a blood orange salad with all of my favourite leaves (behold the heart-stopping beauty of tardivo and Castelfranco, picked up from Cagliari’s San Benedetto) and I put on Elvis’ Love me Tender and we ate in exhausted silence and squeezed each other’s hand a couple of times as the Tiny Saint careered around our feet bellowing cheerfully ‘OH NOOOOOOO’ - his new favourite phrase - which he usually accompanies with the enthusiastic hurling of a fragile object onto the tiled floor. Stockstill, he watches the object smash into a million pieces, raises his tiny hands to his head and shouts with exquisitely enacted melodrama, ‘OH NOOOOOO!’.   

Undressed but no less beautiful

So, that was Valentine’s day, and the Little Saint himself had a romantic encounter with his beloved Dada (Ada) where they endearingly exchanged daisies for a few minutes and stroked each other’s faces in blissful silence before somebody got jealous about a particular daisy and the whole thing escalated into frenzied snatching, slapping and tears, as is usually the case.

Meanwhile, I dreamt about making some custard creams. I saw that Nigella posted them for Valentine’s, little heart shaped ones, and I couldn’t resist having a go. She always posts exactly what I feel like making.

More of a jammy dodger

I had been thinking about biscuits (I am often thinking about biscuits) and how they are so much a pillar of British eating and baking, and then also how they constitute the traditional breakfast of most Italian children I know. When I used to ask my school children what they had had for breakfast (a good way to get children to start talking in English) they invariably squeaked in reply, ‘Milk and bisqueets!’ (Italian is a language where every letter in the word is pronounced. This means that Italians pronounce the silent ‘i’ in biscuits, a pronunciation which I must say I much prefer). The Tiny Saint has a bit of a thing about biscuits at the moment, and rather than buying them I thought I should make him some. As he spurns all of my wholemeal flour/rye/farro and natural sugar creations (I try so hard, but it’s hopeless. And also, when did I get this uptight? I was raised on white flour and white sugar and it never did me any harm) I thought to hell with it, let’s make a truly, unapologetically sweet and nostalgic biscuit, and then, as if by magic, Nigella’s recipe popped into my inbox.

The thing is, sometimes the heart just wants the simple, sweet flavours of butter, white sugar, vanilla and flour, and why fight it. Biscuits are a fundamental part of my heritage, at school I was once famed for having consumed 30 in a single sitting (ginger nuts, since you ask), although I remember pink wafers, custard creams and bourbons were all also in unlimited supply. Part of growing up is about binging on biscuits. At our childhood parties there were always party rings (a heinous crime against biscuits), jammy dodgers and a short-lived biscuit called the Smily Face, which had both cream and extra chewy jam inside and creepy faces outside.

Custard creams were not my favourite, I was always a Golden Crunch Cream or a Ginger Nut girl, but after you have made them for yourself they will soon win a prize position in your heart. I was surprised how good they were, and came upon Lorenzo eating the cream by the spoonful when he thought I wasn’t looking. The thing is these biscuits are irresistible because they taste like nostalgia; because they are creamy, buttery, and supremely vanilla-ry, and vanilla will always, to me, be the flavour of pure innocence and joy, exactly what childhood tastes like. That, and maybe crumpets with butter and honey.

After all my efforts, the Tiny Saint tried one, chewed for a moment, and then spat it on the floor and proceeded to stamp on the soggy remnants, dancing up and down and calling out his own name (his current nickname, Pipi. They change every month or so), a little jig he much enjoys. Well, we can always dream that he loves his mummy’s food more than Kinder. Meanwhile, Lorenzo and I have eaten all the biscuits.

I am going to tweak this recipe because I want to change them a little bit (tiny tweaks!) but this is what I did, as I say it’s based on Nigella but I don’t have custard powder or vegetable shortening. It works and is delicious like this too, but I can’t help but tweak. More soon!

You will need a cookie cutter. If you don’t have a heart shaped one no matter.

Makes about 16 biscuits

For the biscuit dough

175g plain flour

3 tbsp cornflour

100g unsalted butter

1 scant tsp salt

1 scant tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 tbsp milk or more to bind

For the cream

1 tbsp cornflour

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g butter

100g icing sugar

1 tsp boiling water

I also filled some with strawberry jam

Preheat the oven to 170.

First make the dough. Pulse the flours, baking powder, salt and butter in a processor until you have a fine crumb. Add the egg, milk and vanilla and pulse again briefly until everything comes together as a smoothish dough. Wrap in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Meanwhile make the filling. Beat the butter until soft, then sieve the cornflour and icing sugar into the processor and beat again. Add the vanilla and boiling water and blitz until smooth.

Roll out the dough with a rolling pin using a little extra flour if things get sticky. Aim for thickness of about 3mm. Flouring your cutters, cut out equal numbers of tops and bottoms and place on lined baking trays, a little space apart (they don’t spread when cooking so can be fairly close).

Bake for around 15 minutes, then remove and allow to cool, until just yellowing around the edges and starting to smell resolutely biscuity. Spead the bottom half with a scant teaspoon of filling (buttercream or jam) and then sandwich and serve.