South African milk tart with a twist

Almost Bourdain

South African milk tart with a twist

South African milk tart with a twist

Milktart is a very proud South African recipe and one of my favourites. And let me tell you, it sure is a preferred and well liked recipe in my household. Nevertheless this is not a typical dish of milk tart; this one comes with a bit of a twist.

Rather than making use of sugar to sweeten the 'custard', I make use of condensed milk. It adds a beautiful creaminess along with the already truly wonderful flavour that is only available if you use condensed milk in your recipe.

And you definitely know something is really good when a quite loud South African “Afrikaans” family goes extremely quite while they are consuming traditional South African milk-tart, which incidentally happened again last week when I served it up for family and friends that came for a visit.

You can make the pastry yourself like I did, or you can make use of a prefabricated short-crust pastry if you don't have the time to make it yourself. What makes this South African recipe so very-very delicious and so easy to make is unlike other milk tart recipes, the filling do not need to be cooked. You simply permit it to cook in a stove, then pour the concoction onto the crust and you then place it in the refrigerator.

 

Buying the baking products beforehand

For our international readers and expat South Africans living overseas you can now buy all your baking products online via a South African product and food store called Saffatrading including traditional baking products that you will only be able to find in a South Africa grocery store or on a SA online food shop.

 

This recipe below makes one typical standard-size milk-tart

Making of the crust: (If you discover that there is way too much dough for this recipe, cover the dough that is left over in some cling-wrapping and then freeze it for the next time.

• 70g soft butter.
• 70ml - 5 teaspoons caster sugar.
• 1 normal size egg.
• 250ml 1 mug of flour.
• 5ml - 1 teaspoons baking powder.
• A pinch of salt.

 

Ingredients for the filling:

• 500ml milk.
• 1 tin condensed milk.
• 15 ml butter or margarine.
• 2 large eggs.
• 5ml Vanilla extract.
• 50g corn flour.
• Cinnamon for sprinkling.

To make the crust, combine the sugar and butter till it’s fluffy and light. Now add the egg and beat it well before including the flour, the salt and baking powder. Mix it well.

Now place the dough into a specific made pie-dish and bake for approximately 15 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius. Now you need to remove it from the stove and permit it to cool down.

How to make the filling:

Incorporate the milk, condensed milk and the butter or margarine in a little saucepan and let it boil.
Beat the corn-flour, eggs and the vanilla together.
Whilst you are whisking these 3 ingredients, gradually pour 1 mug of the milk blend into the egg mixture and whisk it well.
Now you need to add the egg combo into the remainder of the milk blend and allow it to carefully thicken whilst constantly stirring it to avoid it forming any lumps.
It ought to take around 5-8 minutes for the blend to expand. Now you need to taste it to make certain that there is no 'floury' structure or taste, it needs to be totally smooth.
The filling should have the feel of a thick-cheese sauce just before pouring it over the crust. If it does not have the specific feel you can add a couple of teaspoons of corn-flour and milk.

Transfer the filling up into the cooled down pie crust and spray with cinnamon. Now you can refrigerate it until it is firm and ready to be eaten. This will normally take about 2 hours before its ready to be consumed.