#custard slice

crème brûlée cookie (cookie run: kingdom) stimboard!

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Big fat custard slice…..

'She was very, very fat. She spread outwards and towered upwards. At least a quarter of her height seemed to be accounted for by her hair, which was a rigid pagoda-like structure: a landscape of peaks and waves, whorls and curls ending in a sharp point like an inverted ice cream cone. It was the colour of butterscotch instant whip.'

I'm shocked it's taken me such a long time to read any of the Midsomer Murders books. For a long time I didn't even realise there were books, the show being such an institution that it overshadowed all else. On the back of my copy of The Killings At Badger's Drift it says 'One of the CWA Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time'. I pondered what CWA meant. In Leicester CWA is a 'creative thinking' agency (whatever that could possibly be). College of West Anglia? Apparently it's the Crime Writers' Association. Well...great! If it was me running the show it would be at the very top. I have never been so enamoured with a book before. I had made a note on several pages before the end of the first chapter, which is a very good sign indeed. For me it was a connection. Caroline Graham writes like me. She's far superior, obviously, since she is actually a writer, but I couldn't escape the short sentences. I was always told at school not to use short sentences. Brackets and commas are the enemy and you just need to press on with the sentence, give it both barrels. But that's not who I am, that's not how I speak. I often cut myself short to go on a tangent that can only be illustrated with brackets when writing it down (god knows how people keep up with me when I am actually speaking to them. At least three sentences spring from my original sentence and end up far removed the point). She often starts writing a character's thoughts without telling you, and it's not until you're halfway through that you realise it's all in their mind and not part of their external world at all. It's brilliant! Finding someone that has written like this, who has been successful writing like this, brings me great joy. I have no ambitions to be a writer or to do anything with this newsletter other than to write it for myself (I'm so glad you all read it, I really am, but I do this for me first of all. I must do something and this is it), but finding someone else that makes me believe I am allowed to write as I want to is the best feeling in the world.

'You're a good boy,' she crooned, kissing him full on the mouth. Her breath was very sweet, a soft explosion of violet cachous and cream and rich vanilla. 'Mummysbestboy.' Her fingers slipped into his shirt, caressing the bony wings of his shoulder blades. 'Bestestonlyboy.'

I wanted to create a recipe for Barnaby first of all, since he is the main event, but when I started reading The Killings At Badger's Drift I was pacing around the room with excitement thinking about The Rainbirds. Obviously I had seen them portrayed so brilliantly by Richard Cant and Elizabeth Spriggs and loved them then, but reading Barnaby's first encounter with this repulsive duo really set me going. How ghoulishly fascinating they are. Dennis, a pale foppish undertaker, and Iris, a preened oppressive mass of a person. Barnaby thinks they would fit very well into a Joe Orton play and I can completely see that. As the quote above shows, their relationship as mother and son is not quite the usual. I'd quite like to put them behind glass at a museum and watch them, watch their eyes twinkling with conspiracy. When Barnaby and Troy meet them at their home, Dennis Rainbird wheels out a trolley 'built along the lines of the altarpiece at the Brompton Oratory', piled high with sandwiches and cakes. The sandwiches are cut into playing card shapes, which brings out their characters so well (marmite hearts, potted meat diamonds...). Poor Troy is handed a vanilla slice, which Dennis notes he isn't enjoying very much. 'Press him to a frangipane, then' is Iris Rainbird's response. I just love them hideously. They take so much care over their presentation, and they love every minute of it. I had to make the vanilla slice that Sergeant Troy has so much trouble with. It's slightly fiddly, this one, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. I've made it easier by using shop bought puff pastry, but I do feel The Rainbirds will be able to tell the difference! There will be a bit of wastage of the pastry here but I found myself snacking on this while the custard cooled, so I'm sure you'll be alright.

Custard slice

This is the poor relation of the French mille feuille, layers of puff pastry enclosing a creamy custard and topped with a thin layer of icing, usually with lines creating a feather pattern.

It looks OK. It has the basic right ingredients, but it’s been refrigerated too long, so the pastry is so hard you need a sharp knife to cut it.  The custard filling is spot on - the Vanilla Slice (as it’s called) has just what the Brits like; a creamy custard made from milk, eggs, sugar and whipping cream. It’s no accident that the French call ‘custard’ ‘creme anglaise’  - English cream. Now for the topping. The yellow on white looks a bit insipid (and is hardly visible in the photo below). The icing is thick and therefore very, very sweet.  Only 318 calories per slice!

Having said all that, I’ve just demolished one - after walking to the shops and feeling virtuous. I did enjoy it. There is a strange phenomenon that if you like something very much, you will still take some pleasure in eating a slightly inferior version. You may disagree with me on this. There’s the opposing argument that says the more you like something, the less you can tolerate a less-than-perfect dish.

Never mind, back to work now, feeling quite happy with my indulgent break.

One last thought: here are two more photos.  The first, taken some while ago, was my imperfect attempt at home (but they did taste gorgeous) and the second is perhaps the most promising of the whole lot, seen in a pastry shop in New York.