Yoyo Biscuits (Melting Moments) with Custard Powder

Custard powder is the other great forgotten cupboard ingredient, and it makes the softest, most meltingly short biscuit going. These are classic yoyos, or melting moments if you are anywhere other than New Zealand, with one small addition that nobody will be able to put their finger on. Let's bake!

Why These Custard Powder Yoyos Work

Custard powder is mostly cornflour, so it dilutes the gluten. Less gluten means less structure, which is exactly what you want in a biscuit that is supposed to collapse the second it hits your tongue. It also runs that unmistakable custard flavour right through the dough.

Toasting the milk powder is the extra step and it is worth it. Heat sends the milk sugars and proteins into a Maillard reaction and you get a nutty, toffee, almost dulce de leche flavour for the price of a spoonful of powder.

There is no egg in them at all. Handy when you are down to your last one, and it is part of why they stay so short.

You get to choose the filling. A condensed milk buttercream gives a caramel richness that plain buttercream never has, and it is written out below. I filled mine with jam instead, and both are lovely.

They are expensive to buy and cheap to make. These are always the priciest thing in the cabinet at the cafe, and they come out of a block of butter and a tin of custard powder.

Recipe Details

• Prep Time: 25 minutes, plus 20 minutes chilling
• Cook Time: 14 minutes
• Total Time: 59 minutes
• Makes: 8 filled yoyos, which is 16 halves
• Difficulty: Easy
• Special Equipment: None

The low oven is what keeps these short and tender, and you are aiming for blonde rather than golden. If the edges take a little colour, do not stress about it, they will still be lovely. What matters far more is patience at the end. They are extremely fragile while warm and will break if you try to lift them off the tray, so leave them alone until they are stone cold. Milk powder is one of those pantry staples I will always argue for, because it earns its shelf space well beyond biscuits. It is the shortcut to a good white sauce when you have run out of milk, and once you have made one of those you have made half the dinners in my repertoire.

Ingredients

For the biscuits

• 100g butter, softened
• 30g icing sugar, sifted
• 75g plain flour
• 30g custard powder
• 15g milk powder, toasted, see step one
• Pinch of salt

For the filling

• 40g butter, softened
• 60g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tbsp condensed milk
• Pinch of salt

Or use about 4 tsp of jam instead, which is what I did.

How to Make Custard Powder Yoyos

1. Toast the milk powder. Spread it on a small tray and put it in the oven at 150C (130C fan / 300F / Gas Mark 2) for 8 minutes, stirring twice, until it turns sandy and smells of toffee. A dry pan over a low heat works just as well. Let it cool completely.
2. Heat the oven. Turn it up to 180C (160C fan / 350F / Gas Mark 4) and line a tray.
3. Cream the butter and sugar. Beat the softened butter and icing sugar together until pale and light, about 3 minutes. A wooden spoon and some determination is fine, beaters are faster.
4. Add the dry ingredients. Sift in the flour and custard powder, add the cooled milk powder and the salt, and mix to a soft dough.
5. Roll and press. Roll into 16 balls of about 15g each. Space them on the tray and flatten each one gently with a floured fork, which is the classic yoyo imprint.
6. Chill. 20 minutes in the fridge so they hold their shape.
7. Bake blonde. 14 minutes. You want them staying pale, though a little colour creeping in at the edges is absolutely fine. The bases should be just set.
8. Cool completely on the tray. They are very fragile warm and will snap if you move them early.
9. Make the filling. Beat the butter, icing sugar, condensed milk and salt together until smooth and light. Or skip this entirely and go straight to jam.
10. Sandwich. Pipe or spoon the filling onto half the biscuits and press the others gently on top.

Why You'll Love This Recipe

• They actually melt: Genuinely the shortest biscuit in the pantry
• That custard flavour: Unmistakable, and it comes from a tin you already own
• The toasted milk powder trick: Costs nothing and tastes expensive
• No eggs: Useful when you are down to your last one
• Cheaper than the cabinet: These are always the dear ones at the cafe

Chef's Tips for Custard Powder Yoyos

Watch the milk powder like a hawk. It goes from sandy to burnt very quickly, and burnt milk powder is bitter enough to ruin the batch. Stir it, and pull it the moment it smells nutty.

Cool the toasted milk powder before it goes in. Warm powder hitting softened butter starts melting it, and the dough loses the structure that keeps these short.

Flour the fork between presses. Otherwise it drags the dough up with it and you get ragged edges instead of clean lines.

Fill them with whatever you can spare. Buttercream is traditional and it is lovely, but we had already gone through a good amount of butter across the day's baking and I had jam that needed using. It is not a compromise. It is lighter, and it cuts through the richness of the biscuit.

Weigh the balls. 15g each sounds fussy and it takes a minute. It is the difference between eight neat sandwiches and a plate of mismatched halves.

Leave them completely alone until cold. This is the one that catches people out. Warm yoyos have no structure at all and will break under a palette knife.

Substitutions & Variations

• No milk powder? Leave it out and add 15g more plain flour. You lose the toasted flavour but the yoyos still work
• Use jam instead of buttercream: Apricot or plum in the middle, cheaper and lighter, and it cuts the richness
• Add lemon zest to the filling if you want to sharpen it up against all that butter
• A spoon of cocoa in place of 10g of the flour, for a chocolate version
• Coffee buttercream: A teaspoon of instant dissolved in the condensed milk before you beat it in
• Make them smaller: 10g balls give you a proper petit four size for a tin of mixed biscuits

Storage

Best eaten fresh: The unfilled biscuits are at their absolute best on the day they are baked.

Airtight container: Filled yoyos keep three days at room temperature, though they soften as the filling sits in them.

Fridge: Avoid it. It dries out short biscuits and sets the filling into a brick.

Freezer: Freeze the unfilled biscuits for up to two months. Fill them once thawed.

Avoid: Filling them until the day you want them. Sandwiched early, they go soft from the inside out.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use cornflour instead of custard powder? You can, but you lose the vanilla and the yellow colour that make a yoyo a yoyo. Custard powder is essentially cornflour with vanilla and colouring added, so put a splash of vanilla in if you swap.

Why did mine spread? The butter was too soft, or the dough skipped the chill. Both are fixable. Give it longer in the fridge and start with butter that is soft enough to beat but still cool.

Can I make the filling ahead? Yes. Keep it covered at room temperature and beat it again briefly before you use it.

What is the difference between a yoyo and a melting moment? Very little, and mostly geography. In New Zealand they are yoyos, in Australia and the UK you are more likely to hear melting moment. Both are a short, custard powder or cornflour biscuit sandwiched with buttercream.

Why are they called yoyos in New Zealand? I genuinely do not know, and I would love someone to tell me. Two discs joined in the middle is the best guess anyone has given me so far.

Do I have to toast the milk powder? No, and the biscuits are still good without it. But it is the step that makes people ask what you did differently, and it costs you eight minutes and a spoonful of powder.

Do I need a mixer? No. Creaming softened butter and icing sugar by hand takes a few minutes of real effort and works perfectly. Beaters are quicker, that is all.

Why did my biscuits break when I moved them? They were still warm. There is almost no gluten holding these together, so all their structure comes from the butter setting as they cool. Leave them on the tray until they are stone cold.

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Hazelnut Jam Drop Cookies (Thumbprint Cookies) - The third biscuit, and the one that clears the jam jars out of your fridge door.

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Pantry Staples That Make Dinner Less Boring - More of the quiet cupboard workhorses, on the savoury side.

Make these when you think you have nothing in. A block of butter, a tin of custard powder and twenty minutes, and you have something genuinely special that would have cost you a small fortune in a cafe cabinet. And do let me know if you can tell me why we call them yoyos.

Enjoy!

Del x

Melt in the mouth custard powder yoyos with a toasted milk powder twist, filled with jam or condensed milk buttercream.