If you were to name 10 iconic New Zealand dishes off the top of your head, the custard square would almost certainly be among them. No bakery in this country worth its salt would dare omit this messy pastry from the array of sumptuous offerings we’ve come to expect from such an institution.
But like much of our cuisine, the dish originated elsewhere.
Pastry and crème pâtissière? Naturally, the French invented it. The mille-feuille, or ‘thousand sheets’ (referring to the many layers of butter and flour involved in making puff pastry), dates back to the 1600s.
This clammy colation quickly spread its flaky wings and is now known by many names on all five continents, albeit with slight differences.
The Dutch tompouce is dyed orange on King’s Day. In Hong Kong, the Napoleon incorporates meringue and walnuts. Colombian milhojas are topped with dulce de leche, a caramelised milk. In Australia, it’s officially known as the vanilla slice, but in true Aussie fashion, it’s also called the ‘snot block’.
We may never know who had that pie-in-the-sky moment to bring this global goodie to our shores or tweak it according to the particular taste of the New Zealand palate. That is, icing sugar, two layers of puff pastry and a girthy, unmanageable layer of custard betwixt.
The custard square must have entered New Zealand sometime in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The third edition of that ultimate catch-all of New Zealand cuisine, the Edmonds’ Cookbook, makes no mention of it in 1914 (unless they didn’t consider the sticky sweet worth the cut).
The first reference to the “custard square” in a New Zealand newspaper was in the classifieds of the Christchurch Star in 1928, where an anonymous baker offered to deliver cartons of “vanilla custard squares” for 1s 3d, or about $6.44 in today’s money.
Soon after, the custard square became the centre of a power struggle in New Zealand.
The Christchurch Gas Company and the Municipal Electricity Department (Christchurch’s power company) were trying to get customers hooked on their alternative energy products. Their marketing strategy? Weirdly identical. Both started advertising free cooking classes in the city for various dishes. Aside from those classic favourites we all love, such as rabbit in jelly and pumpkin soufflé, one of the favourite selling points was showing people how to make custard squares.
The custard square conundrum
Aside from all this, one thing is certain: No one seems to have figured out a way to eat the thing without causing some chaotic eruption of ingredients all over your face, fingers and plate.
Biting straight into it or cutting it with a knife and fork creates a serious splurge on all sides. Other methods — such as eating it from the side or attempting to lick the custard out first — can result in a crumbly explosion of icing and pastry.
But a recent discovery in Masterton, of all places, may have finally solved the custard square conundrum.
Monique Kloeg runs the Ten O’clock Cookie Bakery Cafe on the main drag, a staple of the Wairarapa culinary scene since the 1980s. She recently took over from her parents, Dutch immigrants who built the now impressive baking empire from scratch. Kloeg has been involved since childhood and has an intimate knowledge of all things baked.
To mark the start of her new reign, Kloeg has casually posted on social media a technique for eating custard squares that she has quietly perfected over the many years she has worked at the bakery.
The public reaction has been one of surprise, shock, and delight.
Her idea is to hold the square on the bottom sheet between the thumb and middle finger of one hand and grasp the top sheet with the thumb and middle finger of the other hand. Then, in a swift 90-degree turn with both hands, you separate the two halves into effectively two pastry biscuits with a perfect layer of custard on both.
No mess, no fuss. That is if you can pull it off.
Only time will tell if this bold new advance in custard-square-eating technology will pay off, saving the nation countless napkins and wasted tonnages of custard.