This morning I sent a recipe to family in America. They were looking for a typical South African recipe to try out.

I thought about it for a while and then decided on Milk Tart. I then wanted to send them a picture so that they could see what it looks like and couldn't find a decent one on my phone. So I went on to google to find a link to one, what I found was a bit ironic, today is in fact National Milk Tart Day.

A day especially for this treat. Something that I didn't know, but according to google is that Milk Tart originated from the Dutch settlers here.

So maybe some (or all of you) might know this well. But I thought seeing as it is the day, to share my family recipe for it.

So for the base:

2 cups of flour
1 egg
1/2 a cup sugar
2 teaspoons  baking powder
125g butter
Pinch of salt

Cream the butter, sugar and egg well.
Add the rest of the ingredients.
This makes a stiff dough.
Press the dough into a round cake tin or a pie dish.
Bake at 150'C until light brown.

The filling

4 and a half 1/2 cups milk
2 1/2 tablespoons of cornflour
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
Pinch of salt
2 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
A big spoon of butter

Bring milk to the boil.
Beat eggs well, add sugar, flour, cornflour and salt and mix well.
Pour the boiling milk into the mixture and stir well.
Return to the stove and stir until the mixture thickens.
Mix in the butter and vanilla essence. Then pour this into your baked pastry shell.

To decorate, sprinkle with cinnamon.
I usually leave it to set over night.

I am sharing two photos, not great quality, but they are my own. One is a large on, the other is when I have lots of time and patience on my hands and make bite size ones.

#southafrica 
#recipe