SOUTH AFRICAN MILK TART

This South African milk tart or melktert is one of the desserts that I grew up with.  I love the sweet crust pastry, filled with milk custard and topped with cinnamon. Living in South Africa, my mother used to go to "Fontana" bakery every Friday and buy a milk tart.  While in high-school, I visited a South African classmate in London.  Her mother was an excellent baker and I got this recipe from her.  The only changes I made to her recipe was a reduction in sugar!

Tips for making South African milk tart.

You can make the sweet crust pastry entirely by hand as shown in the youtube video or make it with a food processor which will take a fraction of the time to make but the rest of the time cleaning the parts so it probably doesn't save much time!

Sweet crust pastry should be powdery when combined.

Making the crust.

When making the crust for South African milk tart, make sure that your pastry is uniform throughout the pan, especially in the corners and the edges.  Do not make the edges too thin as this will brown and burn easily.  Do not make the corners too thick.

The crust will have a tendency of shrinking slightly so press the crust so that it overextends the pan slightly.

Making the custard.

Since it's called South African milk tart, the custard is primarily made from milk and eggs.  Making the custard requires patience.  First you need to temper the eggs.  Tempering eggs is adding a little bit of warm liquid to the egg to raise the overall temperature of the egg before adding it to the hot liquid.  This will prevent the eggs from scrambling!  When the milk and eggs are combined and heated,  the custard needs constant stirring to avoid developing lumps.

However, if lumps accidently develop, remove the custard from the heat and use an immersion blender to break down the lumps.

If the custard is too thin, it will not set properly so make sure that the custard is fairly thick and coats the back of the spoon when the spoon is removed and leaves streaks when stirring.  This is when you know that the custard is thick enough.

Pour the cooked custard into the cooled pie crust while warm and using a sieve, sprinkle cinnamon powder on the top of the milk tart.

South African milk tart is delicious at all temperatures.  When warming up the milk tart, the custard will not be as firm and will not hold its shape.  However, this is the way I like it!

Since the milk tart is made from milk, it will require refrigeration if not consumed within a few hours.  This is authentic South African milk tart.  Just the way I remember it from childhood!  If you're in the neighborhood and make this, I'm always available for tea! Enjoy.