Melt in Your Mouth "Custard Kisses" for Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I found this nostalgic recipe for Custard Kisses in one of my Mother's old recipe books and I thought they would be perfect to make for Valentine's Day for a little treat. They are a beautiful, melt in the mouth, dainty biscuit, perfect to enjoy with a cup of tea. When I ate my first one, it reminded me so much of the Yo Yo biscuits that we ate in a cafe in Stanley, in the Falkland Islands with our little grandson on Valentine's Day last year, that when I started looking at other recipes, I realised that a lot of the biscuit recipes for Custard Kisses, Melting Moments and Yo Yos are very similar. As these biscuits have custard powder in the mixture and the icing, and it is Valentine's Day, I am calling them Custard Kisses. Custard powder is such a successful ingredient in biscuits, and is really only cornflour, sugar and vanilla flavouring but produces the wonderful melt in the mouth texture of these biscuits. There are also tiny pink flecks throughout the icing from the custard powder which are pretty, however unfortunately you can't see those in the photo.

I can also understand the appeal of calling them Yo Yos, as the CWA (Country Women's Association) did, many years ago, as they do look like little yo yos. Remember those fun toys on a string  that were around when we were growing up? If you feel like having some more fun with them, why not make a few batches and make the icing in the middle in a few different colours for a party. These biscuits are a favourite in Australian coffee shops, and there is often a jar of them sitting on the counter to purchase with a cup of coffee or tea.

Let's Cook:

Ingredients:

225 g (1 1/2 cups/8 oz) plain flour, sifted

40 g (1/4 cup/1 1/2 oz custard powder), sifted

40 g (1/4 cup/1 1/2 oz) icing sugar, sifted

175 g (6 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:

Makes 16 serves when joined together with icing

Preheat the oven to 180 deg. c (350 deg F.) 

Line a baking tray with baking parchment

Cream together the butter and icing sugar in an electric mixer, (I used my Kitchen Aid), until nice and creamy. 

Add the vanilla essence, and then add the flour and custard powder gradually to the bowl while beating on the lowest speed. As you keep beating this mixture gently on Speed 1, a beautiful dough will form.

Roll teaspoonfuls of the dough into small balls,  and place on the tray. 32 biscuits will fit on your tray perfectly.

Flatten the tops of each biscuit lightly with a fork.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until slightly golden on the base. Cool completely on a wire cooling rack.

Filling:

I used a separate clean glass bowl for this with my hand held mixer.

Beat the butter, icing sugar and custard powder together until well mixed and creamy. You may need to add a little extra butter if the mixture is still a bit crumbly. It needs to spread easily on the bottom biscuit.

When the biscuits have completely cooled,  match them up so that you have 16 pairs of equal size.

Place 1/2 teaspoon of the icing on the flat side of 16 biscuits, and then if you have some icing left over you can add more to each biscuit. Press the flat side of the other biscuit on top to sandwich them together. 

Allow the icing to set, before storing them in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Warm wishes,

Pauline