Auckland’s newest cult baked good is here and it is… a custard slice.
Daily Bread introduced the new product, priced at $7 a square, to its six shops around Tāmaki Makaurau last Saturday. Doors open at 7am; all were sold out by 8.
There were even rumours of custard-lovers lined up at some stores before the doors opened, which operations manager Kieran Evans said he believed were true.
Suzi Bath is the company’s head of pastry, based at the Belmont site. She developed the slice, but did she know she had a hit on her hands?
“Absolutely not,” she told Stuff. “I had no idea that this would happen. I would have been more prepared I think.”
A UK native, Bath wasn’t overly familiar with NZ’s favourite custard slice when Daily Bread owners Tom Hishon, Joshua Helm and Patrick Welzenbach proposed it in a development meeting.
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But she knew that her “elevated” version would have to be more than custard made from powder on frozen pastry. So, with the idea of the custard slice’s French ancestor the mille feuille in mind, she started with two layers of Daily Bread’s house made puff pastry, and added a layer of raspberry curd, to cut through the richness.
The custard itself was the tricky part.
“I worked on the custard every day for two weeks to be able to get it just right, because it’s quite a technical thing,” Bath said. “I didn’t want it to be rubbery and too firm, but it has to hold its shape.”
This was a new challenge for Bath.
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Daily Bread’s pastry boss Suzi Bath developed the custard slice, but had no idea it would be such a hit.
“Because I’m from England I don’t have same relationship that most Kiwis do (to the slice) so I was like, custard shouldn’t hold its shape (and) I really am on the edge. It’s quite a soft custard and is kind of a nightmare to cut.”
The trick, she says, is to use cornflour in the mix and then, once the custard has set and cooled, to stir in some whipped mascarpone to make it lighter and creamier.
Using vanilla bean is essential as well, she added. “It needs to be nice and vanilla-y.”
The first weekend, Bath made about 30 for each store to sell on Saturday morning. On Friday night, Daily Bread’s marketing guru, Jess, put up an Instagram post announcing the new weekend treat.
”I went on the grid and it was like, oh my goodness, this is going off a bit,” Bath recalls.
The post has more than 1500 likes – by way of comparison, the posts it’s flanked by have 117 and 311 – and comments from people including celebrity chef Peter Gordon.
With every unit sold before many of us are even awake on the weekend, this past weekend Bath upped the numbers. All stores were sold out by 9am.
“It’s kind of terrifying, actually,” she said.
Next weekend, Bath says, Daily Bread will post numbers on Instagram so custard slice lovers know where their best chance is of a score.
She’s also going to bring in some staff from the viennoiserie team to give her a hand.
“If I had the staff I think that I could do – let’s go crazy – maybe like 100 (per store),” Bath said. “But that’s not going to be for a few weeks.”
Evans confirmed the slice would be a permanent fixture on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“We’d like to have it daily, but it’s a difficult slice to make and requires a lot of technical skill,” he explained.
As for exactly what’s behind the slice’s popularity, Bath says she was unprepared for the kitchy, nostalgic appeal of a custard slice.
“It’s just such a phenomenon here,” she said. “Jess did a great photo, I’ve done something different, it’s an amalgamation of different things. But I think to be honest it’s just that Kiwis just love custard slice.”
