#27

The best custard tarts I've yet tried are from Marks & Spencer, as far as tast goes they have it spot on, but their custards do have structural problems -- they are very moist which weakens the pastry case-- you have to eat them very quickly to avoid them collapsing in your hand so the sad fact about them is that you can't really savor the taste ... you can't even put the remainder of your custard back on the plate in-between bites to eek-out it's consumption because as soon as you have taken a bite out of it what structural strength it does have is totally compromised so there is no way you can pick it back-up from the plate in one piece (the above bitten M&S custard in the photo required extremely careful handling to maintain it in the observed good condition). So the lack of being able to savour your custard means that to elongate the experience in some way one is forced, forced, to have two in one sitting. Mmm. So to avoid me getting fat this tart needs strengthening please Mr Mark and Mr Spencer. Now there is a job I would like: 'Cake Engineer'.... generally I'm sure that the field of cakes is very well served by people striving for better taste and texture, but it is very lacking in the engineering department.... I'm not a qualified engineer, and so I could not sign-off the plans of a sky scraper as being safe and be able to sleep at nights, but I think I could quite confidently corrugate and rib the pastry of an M&S custard tart to improve its structural properties without significant increase in its outer dimensions or volume of pastry used, or cause any reduction in custard carrying capacity. Hmm, 'Cake Engineer'... maybe I'll make myself some phoney business cards with that on and when people ask me what I do at parties....