I love a good custard slice.

Not sure the last time I had one, let alone seen a proper one in the store. The only ones I seem to see at Spar are the ones make with imitation custard and the icing tastes funny and leaves a fatty oily residue on your tongue.

I was reading through my grans cookbooks and came across this recipe dated back in 1990, I was just 2 years old.

I never heard of sour cream pastry before, so I was more than excited to try out this recipe and it was an excuse to use my new rectangle cookie cutter.

The recipe was a bit time consuming with all the cutting out of the shapes and the individual baking rectangles and then waiting for it to cool completely before slicing in half, filling and then covering it in royal icing.

But one bite and all the hard work makes it so worth it. So soft and delicious and the little lemon juice that is in the royal icing, is just the perfect hint of citrus to counteract all the sweetness from the custard cream.

The method for the pastry said that the dry ingredients had to be sifted 3 times, I never heard of this before or even attempted to try it, but because my granny had stated in her steps, I did exactly what she asked for.

The verdict, my parents enjoy it, believe it , they first complained that it looked sweet but after eating a few they completely forgot about their sugar levels and loved every single one of them.

Ingredients for the sour cream pastry:

• 3 x cups cake flour.
• 1 x tsp salt.
• 250g x butter, fridge temperature.
• 1 x cup sour cream, fridge temperature.

Method:

• Sift together the cake flour and salt together three times.
• Rub the butter into the flour mixture, using a pastry cutter, until it resembles crumbs.
• Add the sour cream and using a knife mix the mixture till it comes together.
• Knead till the mixture is nice and smooth.
• Wrap up in cling film and pop into the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.
• Before rolling out, allow the dough to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Ingredients for cinnamon custard filling:

• 2 x cups milk.
• ½ x stick of cinnamon.
• 2 x tbsp. butter.
• 4 x tbsp. castor sugar.
• 3 x tbsp. custard powder.
• 2 x tbsp. corn flour.
• Pinch of salt.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• ½ x tsp almond essence.

Method:

• In a saucepan, warm the milk, cinnamon stick and butter together, till the butter has melted and the mixture comes to a boil.
• While whisking, add the castor sugar, custard powder and corn flour to form a paste.
• Whisk in the salt, vanilla essence and almond essence.
• Remove from the heat and cool complete.
• Push through a fine mesh sieve to remove any lumps and to ensure a nice smooth custard.

To make the pastry:

• Roll out the pastry to a 3mm thickness.
• Using a cookie cutter, cut out rectangles.
• Pop onto a greased baking sheet.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 10 minutes or until puffed up and lightly golden.
• Allow to cool completely.
• Slit each rectangle horizontally in half.
• Fill one half with the custard filling and then top with the other half.
• Pour the glaze over the top.

Ingredients for the glaze:

• 1 ½ x cups icing sugar, sifted.
• 1 x tsp butter.
• 1 x tbsp. lemon juice.
• A little boiling water.

Method:

• Whisk all the ingredients together till nice and smooth.