Carer Finds Escape and Fame Through Custard Slice Reviews
A carer who sought a brief escape from her demanding daily routine has unexpectedly gained online recognition as a custard slice reviewer.
Dawn Fearn, 52, began sharing food reviews on TikTok last year to create small moments of relief from her full-time role caring for two elderly women with dementia.
She describes her caregiving responsibilities as both physically and mentally challenging, and at times isolating. Despite this, her videos have attracted a dedicated audience, with over 50,000 followers across social media joining her on her custard slice tour throughout south Wales.
The tour has fostered new friendships and allowed Dawn, from Swansea, to honour her late mother, who used to take her on custard slice outings during her childhood.
Dawn cares for her 79-year-old mother-in-law as well as a 100-year-old family friend who moved in with Dawn and her husband after difficulties living independently.
"I think as the disease has developed it's obviously more taxing on me in particular because I do the physical care, and mentally it's difficult because they're just not the same ladies that initially did come to live with us," she said.
"As a carer, you can kind of lose your identity and you haven't really got many friends because you're kind of wrapped up in doing that. So it just became a bit of a little escape."
This need for a break initially motivated her to share reviews online. She first posted reviews of eateries on Google, then transitioned to TikTok, becoming more focused on her content from February last year. Her TikTok account, fearnstar, now has 21,000 followers.
Dawn often records her videos on Fridays, when both women she cares for attend a day centre, providing her time to visit cafes and bakeries across south Wales.
Recognizing that many successful influencers have a signature series, Dawn conceived the idea to review custard slices while sitting in her car.
"I was literally just sitting in the car and I think I must have grabbed the custard slice and I was like, oh, that might be an idea," she recalled.
"I did a video in the car and I thought right, no, I am going to do a custard slice tour.
"And I did think back to my mum. When she was alive and when we were kids, she'd take us for what we called 'custard slice day' at a local café.
"I did that video and had loads of comments from people saying, 'you should try this place, you should try that place', and then I was like, right, this is a signature series."
To date, Dawn has reviewed 16 custard slices from bakeries and cafes across south Wales, with three currently leading her rankings.
"Glynneath Tea Rooms is up there because they are probably the closest to a custard slice that I remember, along with Fablas in Cowbridge which is also the same kind of scoring and Crazy Baker in Swansea," she explained.
To maintain consistency in her evaluations, Dawn developed her own judging system, including a custom "custard slice ruler" to measure each pastry, which she places on a stainless steel tray.
Each custard slice is scored out of 10, with the highest rating so far (9.5) awarded to Glynneath Tea Rooms near Neath.
For Dawn, the key criterion is that the custard slices closely resemble those she recalls from childhood—two layers of puff pastry with custard filling and a plain white icing top—although she admits to occasionally including slices with feathered chocolate icing. The presence of jam is considered unacceptable.
Dawn reports that she is now frequently recognized in public, an outcome she had not anticipated, and receives comments from viewers worldwide. She has also formed new friendships through her online presence.
"It's grown so much now that I've got a little friend I've made on TikTok and we go out together and do food reviews as well when I've got some time off," she said.
She emphasizes that she does not consume every custard slice entirely, often sharing them with her husband and the women she cares for.
Her upcoming tour stops include Cardiff, Newport, and Cwmbran.
The Humble Custard Slice
The origins of the custard slice are not well documented but it is widely believed to have evolved from the French mille-feuille, a pastry consisting of three layers of flaky puff pastry and two layers of crème pâtissier—a thick custard thickened with flour or cornstarch.
The earliest recorded mention of the term mille-feuille appears in 1733 in an English-language cookbook authored by French chef Vincent La Chapelle.
In south Wales and the wider UK, a custard slice typically consists of two slices of puff pastry with a generous portion of firm custard in the center, topped with a layer of white icing sugar. Variations exist globally, and the dessert is especially popular in Australia, where it is known as a vanilla slice or colloquially as a 'snot block'.
Pastry chef and cookbook author Nicola Lamb notes that the custard slice is "such a popular dessert that you can find a version of it in most cuisines—from Polish Napoleonka to German Cremeschnittes to Dutch Tompouces; the general message is: Our love for custard is universal. And custard slice is the most generous delivery method."
