The Ultimate Custard Square Hunt - New World Wellington City

We are lucky enough to live within a five minute walk of our supermarket - and that supermarket happens to be pretty awesome, primarily because it has fantastic custard squares - and what more could you want, right?

Since I'm on the hunt for the best custard square I can find I thought I'd better get this one into the running early; at least three different people have told me how awesome they are (and I had already discovered them, I know my priorities when finding my way around a new city!).

Meet the deli counter. Look at all the luscious foods it holds. Behold the quiches, the pastries, the slices.

And then there's the sweet side! Straight away you can identify the custard squares; they're the gigantic, completely un-dainty looking slabs of sugary goodness bang in the middle of the cabinet. I must try some of the other goodies on offer here, but so far only the custard squares have drawn my attention.

There's a close up. As you can see, we once again have the option of chocolate or vanilla icing. We did actually try the chocolate one not long after we moved: I'm not a fan. I love chocolate, yes, but I'll skip the cocoa-infused icing tainting the top of my custard square, thanks very much.  ;-)

The nice deli man gave us our custard square, and we paid the low, low price of $2.80 for... A custard behemoth! Seriously, that thing is huge. It's about twice as tall as the Cozy Cake Shop one, for starters (mmm, more custard). So we cut it in half:

Oops, guess I didn't cut them as evenly as I thought. ;-) Or did I do that on purpose? Hardly matters though; even a half is pretty huge:

So now for the taste test. I reeeeeeeeally like these custard squares (though I actually think a quarter would be a better serving size!). The custard is firm enough to stay together but also quite creamy - tastier custard - I'm going to give it 8/10 - and nice crisp pastry (these ones are edible using a fork, which helps keeping things civil!). The icing is a bit too sugary but still tops off the package nicely. And they are massive - if anyone can eat a whole one in one go I take my hat off to them. ;-)

All in all, a pretty good custard square. I think I need to actually rate them, so I'm going to posthumously give the Cozy Cake Shop square a 7/10, and this one, which has better custard and pastry, is going to get an 8/10.

We'll be in Christchurch this weekend so I'm hoping to track down a Denheath custard square for next week's analysis - I know you can get them mail order (which is awesome) but I kinda don't want the temptation of 12 of them in my freezer. ;-)



Wellington City New World is located at 279 Wakefield Street, Wellington, and is open 7 days, 7am-midnight. Website: http://www.wgtncitynewworld.co.nz/html/home.htm