Originally Posted by Maybe1day
SR is Self Raising Flour, don't you make custard over there?
oh well it isn't necessary to use custard powder, you can use cornflour or what you call cornstarch.
Most custard powders have a yellow colour to the finished custard and this gives the biscuits a yellow look, if you use cornflour the biscuits will be paler again that is all. I think custard powder has a cornflour base to it. It is fine like cornflour. From memory again, I think the colour is annatto and there might be a little salt in it as well but am not sure.
Hope this helps, it is difficult at times converting a recipe between countries I have found. Oh I have also made these biscuits using plain flour using the following recipe -
250gm butter (room temp)
4 tbsp cornflour or (custard powder)
4 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
1 ½ cups plain flour, sifted
Icing
1 ½ cups icing sugar
1 tbsp pure vanilla essence
2 tbsp butter (unsalted) room temperature
Cheers
Maybe1day
Thanks for the explanation. I think the confusion arises from a differences in terminology used for the same thing. When you say "custard", Americans think of the custard in a creme brulee, an egg custard dessert served in a cup or perhaps a coconut custard pie. These custards use no thickeners at all - they are thickened by only the eggs in the recipe.
When we say "pudding", we are talking about a flour-thickened dessert such as a coconut cream pie, chocolate, vanilla or butterscotch pudding served in a cup, the cream filling in a cream puff or an eclair. Puddings are seldom thickened with a corn product, but sometimes they are. I know it can be confusing.
In our grocery stores, we have pudding mixes which are powders we add to milk, cooked (some are instant and require no cooking) and chilled. I think I've also seen custard mixes, too, although I've never used them.
When it comes to the corn products, in the USA, we have corn meal which is very granular and is used to make cornbread, polenta, and to bread fish, chicken, etc. Corn flour is corn meal very finely milled and almost resembles wheat flour. I have never used it for anything - I don't think it is even available in my local stores. Maybe it is used in the southern part of the country.
Cornstarch, on the other hand, is cornflour soaked in water and the starch is extracted and dried and is very white in color. It is used to thicken sauces and gravies, as is wheat flour, and some people add a little to their wheat flour when breading chicken, for instance, as it will make the breading crispy when it is fried. Cornstarch is also what we use to make the filling for lemon meringue pie.
We do not have a "custard powder" unless it is a dessert mix which is added to water or maybe milk, however they do it.
Anyway, your Melting Moments really sound good - I just have to find a conversion chart 'cause I don't do metrics! Even more confusing, I also use a favorite recipe for Melting Moments which also use a good measure of cornstarch, but there the similarity ends - mine are shaped in balls, rolled in powdered sugar (your icing sugar), and look like little snowballs! They also melt in your mouth!