Busy Day Custard Cake

As promised, although extremely long in coming, I'm sharing with you a wonderful cake from my Aussie childhood. I can smell it now- literally, as it sits cooling on the old wire cake cooler which used to belong to Mum.

Another handed down treasure is the recipe itself. In fact, not just THIS recipe, but her whole old, handwritten, falling apart recipe book- the one she cooked from all the time when I was growing up. All of my favourite childhood recipes are in there: Judith's Little Cakes, Coconut-Curry Chicken, Pumpkin Scones, Boiled Fruit Cake, Honey Joys, Easy One-Whip Icecream, Golden Toffees, No-Bake Apricot Slice and Golden Syrup Dumplings.

I was so honored when Mum chose to give me this bundle of worn pages. Occasional clippings are mixed amongst the handwritten recipes. These clipped recipes hail from the days when all desserts were adorned lavishly with glace cherries, and when groceries were brought home from Jewell in paper bags (which were outmoded in about 1982).

For authenticity - and posterity - I thought just this once I'd bring you the scanned original. So here it is: much cooked, well loved, and in my Mum's handwriting- Mum's Busy Day Custard Cake recipe.
And because I'm such a generous soul, I left in an additional freebie: Apricot Slice. This is also a goodie, although not the fave I mentioned earlier!

Here's my rundown of the recipe above:
Combine 1 cup sugar, 1 cup Self Raising Flour (or Plain Flour with 1 tsp Baking Powder) and 3 tbsp custard powder. (There it is, I told you it'd be in there!)
Melt 4oz or 125g butter in a saucepan, allow to cool slightly, then add it to the dry ingredients. Follow with the milk- the aim is to make sure the butter is sufficiently cooled before adding the eggs, so it doesn't cook them on contact! Add the eggs and vanilla essence and beat well for 3 minutes. Place into a greased and floured cake tin and bake in a pre-heated oven at 190 deg C/375 deg F for approx 45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. I always ice mine with a butter icing - butter & icing sugar in roughly equal parts, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence, adding dribbles of milk as needed to bring it to a smooth consistency. When smooth, mix in 1/2 cup of shredded (dessicated) coconut. Spread it on the cake as soon as it's cooled, serve it onto pretty plates, and enjoy!
We did!