custard cream cupcakes

Another custard cream themed bake. Sorry, not sorry. Oreo and bourbon lovers will have to sit at the back of the room. It's all about custard creams here.

When I asked Mum what she'd like me to bake for Mother's Day this weekend she requested custard cream cupcakes. After searching my blog archives I discovered I haven't baked these since 2011! Quite surprising as I baked them a lot pre blog. Sometimes with blogging I think there can be an expectation to only post "new" things, whether it's food, clothing combinations, craft projects, purchases etc. I like revisiting old favourites though. If it works and you love it, who cares!

As I couldn't be bothered faffing about with a piping bag, I just spread the icing on with a palette knife. Ironically, this actually took far longer and some may argue that these look hideously lumpy and ugly, but I rather like the rustic, juvenile application. It has a homemade charm. Plus this form of icing lends itself very well to sprinkles. And everybody knows that sprinkles are the best.

These cupcakes are just as tasty as I remember. The cream in the batter definitely gives the cupcakes an extra indulgent kick and I love the sweetness of the custard cream chunks. I must have picked the cupcake containing the least biscuit chunks to photograph here (typical!) but you can see they're in there.

I'll try to return with a non custard cream related bake, but I can't promise you anything...

Did I mention that I really love custard creams? ;)

furniture revamp

What do you do when you have a boring, old chair and a spare, small wardrobe?

Paint them!

Preferably in vibrant colours such as turquoise and raspberry pink.

The wardrobe has been transformed into a funky storage cupboard for all my sewing materials. The shelves I put up were quite, erm.... rustic, so I lined them with colourful scraps of wrapping paper. Then I found more paper to line the drawers too. Finally my habit of hoarding pretty wrapping paper has paid off.

Project bedroom renovation is almost complete! It has taken well over a month to do but it has been worth it. I just need to finish arranging things and tidy up. All shall be revealed soon!

White chocolate and custard cream browned butter blondies

Well that's certainly a mouthful isn't it?

Last week I was thinking about how oreos are often incorporated into brownies which led me to ponder whether custard creams could be put into blondies. After a quick google image search I noticed nobody had done it. So I made it happen.

After remembering how tasty my last blondies were, I adapted the recipe to use custard creams instead of raspberries. As the recipe link no longer works (why would you remove such a great recipe bbc?) I'll type it up at the end of the post.

I really enjoyed the texture of these blondies. They have that essential crispy, cracked surface and fudgy/chewy texture inside you'd expect from a good blondie or brownie but also an added crunch from the custard cream biscuit chunks. Then there are the delicious, smooth chunks of white chocolate just to punch up the sweet-factor even further. Basically, if you love sweet, vanilla based bakes then you'll love these. They're a real treat.

I also don't think I can go back to making blondies without browning butter. It really does add something. Plus the sweet, biscuity smell of butter while it's browning is pretty addictive. Yay for butter!

White chocolate and custard cream browned butter blondies

Recipe originally from bbc good food's website

200g unsalted butter
150g white chocolate chopped into chunks (I used Lindt as it has a lovely vanilla flavour)
300g light muscovado sugar
3 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
200g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract
100-125g custard cream sandwich biscuits, broken into chunks

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line a 25 x 22cm tin. (I didn't have the correct sized tin so I used a smaller oblong one and a 7inch square sandwich tin.) Melt the butter in a saucepan and cook gently for about 5 minutes until the white solids turn golden and the butter starts to smell biscuity and sweet. Side aside to cool for 5 minutes. Add half of the white chocolate to the melted butter and set aside again for a few minutes, stirring until combined. Meanwhile, beat together the sugar and eggs for a couple of minutes until thick and pale. Add the flour, salt, vanilla extract and cooled butter mixture and mix together. 

Pour into the tin (or tins) then scatter custard creams and white chocolate chunks on top, pressing them in slightly. Bake for 40-45 minutes until it has a golden crust and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out relatively clean. (Since I used smaller tins my blondies cooked quicker, about 35-40 minutes.) Leave to cool in the tin. It's tempting to dive in straight away but they cut so much easier once cool.