A custard cream is a type of sandwich biscuit popular in the British Isles filled with a creamy, custard-flavoured centre.
 A custard cream biscuit | |
| Type | Biscuit |
|---|---|
| Place of origin |  United Kingdom |
| Main ingredients | Biscuits, buttercream (traditionally vanilla) |
Traditionally, the filling was buttercream (which is still used in most home-made recipes) but nowadays cheaper fats have replaced butter in mass-produced biscuits. The filling has a vanilla flavour and as such is more akin to the taste of custard made with custard powder than egg custard. It is believed that the custard cream biscuit originated in Britain in 1908.[1] Usually, they have an elaborate baroque design stamped onto them, originating in the Victorian era and representing ferns.[2]
Some British and Irish supermarkets produce their own brand versions, with flavour variations including lemon, orange, chocolate, strawberry, coffee, tangerine, rhubarb & custard and coconut. There is a digestive cream version available, in which the biscuit is replaced with a digestive biscuit.
In a 2007 poll of 7,000 Britons, 9 out of 10 voted custard creams to be their favourite biscuit.[2] In 2009 it was ranked the eighth most popular biscuit in the UK to dunk into tea.[3] In the same year, a study by Mindlab International listed custard creams as the most likely biscuit to cause injury or harm, scoring a so-called "risk rating" of 5.64.[4]
Custard creams featured in the 2022 film Thirteen Lives, as the favourite snack of British cave rescuers Rick Stanton and John Volanthen.[5]