Milk Tart – photo by Arnold Goodway
Milktart!
Something that forms an important part of our life are the things we love to eat, the memories of who made it, where and with whom we shared those things. Milktart is just one of the traditional teatime treats in South Africa. I’ve made many using this recipe, don’t know where it originated but it has been a hit with all who has tasted it. I sometimes made it for someone’s birthday or just to treat colleagues and friends at work or at the gym. Yip even them fitness addicts couldn’t resist it. To find out what all the fuss is about I’ll now share this recipe with you and you can try it for yourself, if you’re not brave enough get someone to make it for you.
The recipe is as follows: (makes about 3 (20cm pans) or one large one depends on the pan you choose!
Equipment:
Kitchen, oven, cooker/stove, (gas/electric), various other standard kitchen equipment, such as a mixing bowl or two, mixer(mechanical or manual), spoons, measuring cups, pie tins( the foil ones work well) even your oven pan will be just as good.
Ingredients:
Base/crust: Mix together : 1/2 cup sugar, 125g margarine or real butter, vanilla, and 1 egg. Basically cream it. Now add to this mixture 2 cups cake flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, a pinch of salt. This should form dough that you must now press into the baking tins with your fingers. Bake the crust in a pre-heated oven at 180°F for about 10 to 15 minutes until they start to become golden brown. Remove from oven to cool.
Filling: Bring 1 litre of milk and a big desert spoon of butter/margarine to the boil ( you can add a cinnamon stick). In the meantime mix together 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla, a pinch of salt. (Please don’t add custard powder, you’ll spoil it, after all you’re making milktart not custard tart!!!) Once the milk is boiling you must add the flour mix to it very quickly and using a whisk stir rapidly so there are no lumps. Put back on the stove ,bring to boil. Take care not to burn. Remove from heat and pour mixture into the crusts. Sprinkle some cinnamon on the top. You may eat it straight away or save it for later. Just don’t try to freeze the whole tart it doesn’t work!
Mauro has shared the following memory of such milk tarts, this will now prove just how good it is! Enjoy!!
Irresistible Milk-tart
Milk-tart is my favourite among all cakes because of its delicious cream and cinnamon that it’s covered with. My mum made the most mouth watering Milk-tart you will ever find and in our house in the fridge it was never missing. Many memories are connected to this wonderful cake or tart – as you like it – but the episode that stunned me goes back to one late afternoon of my youth, when a friend of mine and I rode with our buzz-bikes to my house. We usually had tea and biscuits, before going to my room to read the latest comic books.
That day when we arrived home and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on for the tea, my friend as usual opened the fridge door and put his nose inside.
“Look what I’ve found!” exclaimed while pulling out the first of the two Milk-tarts my mother had prepared. So we sat at the table sipping our tea and eating the tart. Well, believe it or not, slice after slice we finished it all. Not yet satisfied my friend got the other tart out of the fridge and we polished-off that one too.
Later that evening, when my mum came home she realized that we had eaten those milk-tarts that she had prepared not for us but for the sales party she was having the next day. She asked me if I knew anything about the tarts and I told her they were the best she had ever made and that we had finished them. She started shouting and smiling at the same time, saying that those the Milk-tarts were not to be touched because they were for the guests of her party which I knew nothing about. I thought she had left them for us kids as she usually did. Anyway she didn’t waste any time and some hours later there were two other milk-tarts coming out of the oven that filled the air with a heavenly smell. She told me to stay away and keep my friends far from the kitchen.
From that day onwards that friend of mine always asked me to be invited to have tea at my house.
About Martie
I got my inspiration for this website from the song called “Imagine”, and so I decided to go on this adventure. I have always wanted to put up something like this where my friends and I could express our memories and dreams for the future. Share them with us, because if many people dream the same dream it will certainly come true.
Wow! I could almost taste it with my ears. Your recipe is really delicious and satisfying. Very good, Martie!