Ihad a culinary revelation this week. I like to think I’m an egalitarian when it comes to food – I like beautiful, fancy restaurant stuff and home-cooked one-pot dishes, I like punchy, in-your-face flavour, and subtle, softer flavours. I love trying new-to-me dishes from around the world, and I love the comfort of eating suppers my grandma would make. You can put virtually anything in front of me and I’ll be thrilled.
But as I contemplated this week’s recipe subject, I realised that I avoid foods that ooze. Doughnuts splurging out their jam, uncontainable ice-cream sandwiches, croissants or Danish pastries with custards or compotes that blob onto my clothes. Even really juicy stone fruit or a particularly ripe soft cheese makes me nervous. My name is Olivia Potts, and I have an aversion to squidge.
I don’t know where this avoidance came from, but I was determined to fix it. So this is exposure therapy: nothing has more ooze potential than a custard slice. The squidgy dynamic is the whole point. There is no escaping the fact that at some point, the pastry is going to crack and the custard is going to make a break for it. So I set about curing myself of my squeamishness.
At some point, the pastry is going to crack and the custard will make a break for it
