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Budget cooking and Dairy free Custard

Birds
Traditional Custard Powder


Why is it you don't crave something until you can't have it!!!  

My ultimate comfort food had always been ice cream in the summer and Custard in winter.  Iv solved the ice cream problem by making it myself, but I was still buying ready made Soy Custard.   I thought I could make it dairy free by using soy milk with custard powder, but all ones I looked at had Whey or milk powder added.

I'd almost given up and resigned myself to buying it ready made, when after reading the ingredient list of yet another product, I discovered one i could use. (Had to stop myself doing a happy dance)

With all these new products and brands on the market today, I find that good old Birds Custard Powder   (est- 1837 ) could be made Dairy free.  The Custard powder itself consists of Cornflour, Salt, plant based colouring Annatto and Flavouring.  Iv doubled check the website and It's definitely Dairy free. 

Bird's Custard Powder is Custard in the U.K.  It's part of our culture, it's  the cold thick stodgy custard found on the top of Grandma's trifle at Christmas, it's the overcooked bowl covered with a skin custard found at School Dinners, More importantly  it's not found in the Free from Isle of the Supermarket and it doesn't have an over inflated price.  Another benefit of using a custard powder is that you only make up what you need, so nothing goes to waste. 

Custard Powders are best made fresh as and when you need them.  If you do make to much all you need to do is place cling film over the top of the custard to stop it forming a skin.

My niece and nephew love it with a chocolate flake stirred in to Hot Custard. Or poured on top of there  favourite Chocolate muffins.   I love it over home made cake or tinned fruit.  I use Soy milk as my Dairy free Substitute but it would work with any other.   Not all my childhood memories of it were bad I loved it served fresh made over a slice of iced cake for School Lunches. Especially when the heat of the custard melted the icing.   If you helped clear the dishes from the tables you could get seconds mmm.  

So here's three cheer's for good old Bird's Custard, those pre-war inventors knew what they were doing xxxx










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