Auckland’s latest culinary cult is here and it’s…the custard section.
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 by 8.
There were even rumors of custard lovers occupying some stores before the doors opened, which manager Kieran Evans said he believed to be true.
Suzi Bath is the head of the bakery, based in Belmont. He made a cut, but did he know that it hit his hand?
“No,” he said Things. “I did not know that this would happen. I should have been more prepared I think. “
A native of the UK, Bath was little familiar with the NZ favorite custard slice when Daily Bread owners Tom Hishon, Joshua Helm and Patrick Welzenbach proposed the idea at a development meeting.
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But he knew that his “elevated” version had to be more than a custard made from frozen flour. So, with the French ancestor’s idea of a slice of custard mille feuille, he started with two layers of Daily Bread’s house puff pastry, and added a layer of raspberry curd, to lighten the weight.
The custard itself was the tricky part.
“I worked on the custard every day for two weeks to get it right, because it’s a technical thing,” Bath said. “I didn’t want it to be too tight and tight, but it had to be tight.”
This was a new problem for Bath.
It has been given
Daily Bread pastry chef Suzi Bath made the custard pie, but she had no idea it would be such a hit.
“Because I’m from England, I don’t have the same relationship as a lot of Kiwis (to the region) so I was like, custard shouldn’t have its shape (and) I’m on edge. It’s a very soft custard and it’s hard to cut it.”
The trick, he says, is to use cornmeal in the mixture and then, after the custard has set and cooled, stir in another lashing of mascarpone to make it light and creamy.
Using vanilla beans is important, he added. “It should be nice and vanilla-y.”
The first weekend, Bath made about 30 for each store to sell on Saturday morning. On Friday night, Jess, Daily Bread’s head of marketing, took to Instagram to announce a new weekly giveaway.
“I went to the group and it was like, okay, this is going a little bit,” Bath recalls.
The post has more than 1500 likes – by comparison, the posts in the margin have 117 and 311 – and comments from people including celebrity chef Peter Gordon.
With everything on sale before most of us wake up at the end of the week, this past weekend Bath put the numbers up. All stores were sold out by 9am.
“It’s scary, really,” he said.
Next week, Bath says, Daily Bread will post the numbers on Instagram so fans of the custard slice will know where their luck is best.
He will also bring in some staff from the viennoiserie team to help him.
“If I had the staff I think I could – let’s go crazy – maybe like 100 (each store),” Bath said. “But it won’t be for a few weeks.”
Evans confirmed that the session will be regular on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
“We want to have it every day, but it’s a difficult part to make and requires technical skills,” he said.
As for what has fueled the slice’s popularity, Bath says she wasn’t prepared for the custard slice’s fanfare.
“It just happened here,” he said. “Jess painted it well, I’ve done something, mixed things up. But I think to be honest, Kiwis just like a slice of custard.”
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