Some tins just never seem to end

In my recent post on leftovers, I spoke of my efforts to use up an enormous tin of sauerkraut, which itself involved opening more tins, and then more tins to use up those, and so on. One tin that joined the endless train was a tin of chocolate flavoured custard - a relatively new product on the market from Ambrosia, who have been churning out tins of your standard yellow custard for over 50 years now.

The chocolate custard was not the only new variety from Ambrosia though; at the same time, tins of strawberry-flavoured custard appeared on the supermarket shelves, so naturally I bought one of those at the same time too.

The bold pink colour of the label did unfortunately give me false expectations as to the hue of the custard within - it was far paler than I had thought it would be, looking almost like a strawberry milkshake. There was a hint of that flavour to it as well, though more than anything it reminded me of the somewhat artificial strawberry taste of the whips and mousses we used to get at school (although the label proudly states that there are no articifical colours or flavours). As with most ready-made custards, the consistency on heating is runnier, and seems to make the artificial (to my tastebuds, anyway) strawberry flavour more pronounced. 

As I'd tried the chocolate custard with banana, I felt compelled to do the same again - but that was not a particularly pleasant combination. The banana having been a bit overripe, it was almost like a battle between the fruit and the custard as to which had the more unpleasantly overpowering flavour.

It fared better, as you might expect, with strawberries - tinned ones, of course. I had been meaning to try my tin of strawberries in syrup for some time, and this seemed the ideal opportunity. It may not surprise you to hear that tinned strawberries don't bear a huge resemblance to fresh ones, and do not survive the canning process very well, coming out rather squishy in texture, and slightly paler in tone, losing some of their ruby red colour to the syrup in which they bathe. That in turn appeared to have tinted the usually pale yellow seeds on the outside of the fruits to the same colour, so the strawberries end up looking slightly like they've got goosepimples (or goosebumps, depending on where you're from).

Their brief heating inside the tin affords them a slightly more intense, jam-like flavour - again, not like lovely fresh strawberries, but by no means unpleasant, and a nice contrast to the creamier flavour of the custard.

Just as I'd had a packet of cherry bakewell flavoured chocolate digestives, I also had a packet that were, supposedly, strawberries-and-cream flavoured. Biscuit, custard, fruit and a bit of real cream were therefore combined for a couple of desserts that were not quite cheesecake or trifle, but somewhere in that vague area. Strawberries, cream and bashed-up meringues also made for an Eton Mess that lived up to the second part of its name completely. Tasted good though.

The custard also made an excellent accompaniment to some strawberry jam-filled madeleines that I had spotted in Whole Foods.

Remaining strawberries found themselves stirred into porridge, giving it a delightfully pink hue; and given the similarity in flavour to jam, mashed up onto toast for an unusual but strangely familiar-tasting breakfast. The syrup was surprisingly nice with just some lemonade, though would probably be good in a cocktail too.

When trying the chocolate custard previously, it had occurred to me that ice cream is, when made properly, just frozen custard. So, if you were to take some tinned chocolate custard, strawberry custard, and standard vanilla custard, and freeze the three in layers, you would effectively have recreated Neopolitan ice-cream, that most delightfully retro combination of flavours. It had to be tried.

To try to recreate the distinct layers, I took a long shallow container, put in a layer of chocolate custard and put it in the freezer, removing it every few hours to break up the ice crystals and try to get a smoother frozen mass. I then repeated this with a layer or standard yellow vanilla custard, and then the strawberry.

It was more difficult trying to break up the ice crystals for the second and third layers, as I had to try not to go too deep and disturb the layer below. Despite my efforts, all the layers did still end up with a bit of frosty, crystalline texture - I should have taken a tip from a no-churn ice cream recipe and added a bit of condensed milk to each layer - but that would have required me to open up yet another tin...

Anyway, even if nowhere hear the soft-serve ice cream I was after, I did manage to recreate the distinct layers of Neopolitan, and with it a wave of nostalgia for blocks of the ice cream served at school. Interestingly, when starting to melt, the layers of custard seemed to have an almost mousse-like texture, which again took me back to desserts at school, as well as the mini tubs of strawberry 'Hippo-Pota-Mousse' that we used to have at home - anyone remember those?

But of course then I had opened a tin of vanilla custard, so that had to get used up too. Another bowl of banana custard - the classic, original and best:

And then a tinned take on a dessert that I think I had seen in a Nigel Slater column some time long ago - slices of warmed ginger cake, drizzled with ginger wine, topped with tinned pears (in place of poached) and a little of their juice, and then custard on top. Spicy, boozy, fruity, creamy - it ticked most of the main boxes for desserts.

But dammit now I'd opened a tin of pears, too! So, some of those were taken down a savoury route - on toast, with blue cheese on top, briefly grilled to melt it. An excellent flavour combination. Give it a try.

Finally, a sort-of Poires Belle Hélène - pears, cream, chocolate (in the form of a few blobs of the remaining 'Kajmak' chocolate fudge topping) and, just for good measure, some of the crumbled-up ginger cake too.

And that, I think, saw me to the bottom of all the tins I had opened in an attempt to use up that sodding sauerkraut, itself a leftover from the Crocodile Dundee Hot Dog project from last year. Had I realised how long this was all going to go on for back then, I would probably never have started. Still, it was something to do during the monotony of lockdown.

Footnote: it seems from the Ambrosia website that they no longer produce the strawberry custard. Ah well. It does however show a CHOCOLATE ORANGE custard, which is not something I have ever seen in the shops but will very much need to track down and try. I shall report back - and who knows what twists and turns that tin might take me down...