A custard cream is a type of

sandwich A sandwich is a Dish (food), dish typically consisting variously of meat, cheese, sauces, and vegetables used as a filling between slices of bread, or placed atop a slice of bread; or, more generally, any dish in which bread serves as a ''co ...

biscuit A biscuit is a flour-based baked food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. ...

popular in the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

, and parts of the

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...

, filled with a creamy, custard-flavoured centre. Traditionally, the filling was

buttercream Buttercream, also referred to as butter icing (food), icing or butter frosting, is used for either filling (cooking), filling, coating or cake decorating, decorating cakes. The main ingredients are butter and some type of sugar. Buttercream is ...

(which is still used in most homemade recipes) but nowadays cheaper fats have replaced butter in mass-produced biscuits. The filling has a

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). ''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...

flavour and as such is more akin to the taste of custard made with custard powder than egg custard. It is believed that the custard cream biscuit originated in Britain in 1908. Usually, they have an elaborate

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

design stamped onto them, originating in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

and representing

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

s. Some British and Irish

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

s produce their own brand versions, with flavour variations including lemon, orange, banana, chocolate, strawberry, coffee, tangerine, rhubarb & custard and coconut. There is a digestive cream version available, in which the biscuit is replaced with a

digestive biscuit A digestive biscuit, sometimes described as a sweet-meal biscuit, is a semi- sweet biscuit that originated in Scotland. The digestive was first developed in 1839 by two doctors to aid digestion. The term ''digestive'' is derived from the belief ...

. In a 2007 poll of 7,000 Britons, 9 out of 10 voted custard creams to be their favourite biscuit. In 2009 it was ranked the eighth most popular biscuit in the UK to dunk into tea. In the same year, a humorous study by Mindlab International listed custard creams as the most likely biscuit to cause injury or harm, scoring a so-called "risk rating" of 5.64.

References

{{reflist Biscuits Sandwich cookies

See also

References