South African Milk Tart Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is South African milk tart made of? ›

For those who don't know it, a Milk Tart is thin crispy pastry filled with a creamy milk-based custard and sprinkled generously with cinnamon. The beauty of it is that the custard is surprisingly light, as the base is milk and not cream.

Melktert (/ˈmɛlktɛrt/, Afrikaans for milk tart) is a South African dessert originally created by the Dutch settlers in the "Cape" (South Africa) consisting of a sweet pastry crust containing a custard filling made from milk, flour, sugar and eggs.

Good ol' melktert; the Afrikaans name for 'milk tart'; the classic, South African dessert consisting of a sweet pastry crust, filled with a mild, creamy custard of milk, flour, sugar and eggs, baked in a round pie tin and dusted with cinnamon after baking.

*Feel free to double the FILLING & form thinner/higher pastry edges if you'd like to make a deeper/fuller tart. The tart will keep in the fridge for 3 days but only place it in the fridge once it has fully cooled otherwise it'll crack.

Tennis biscuits can be difficult to find in Australia. Arnotts Nice biscuits make a great substitution. Use any tin of condensed caramel - such as Nestle Top N Fill Caramel, Carnation Caramel, or thick dulce de leche. Use any rectangular or square baking tin - it is fine for there to be small gaps between the biscuits.

Allow the milk tart to cool at room temperature. If you put it in the fridge straight away, you will probably end up with a huge crack down the centre as a result of cooling too quickly. Be sure to use the best quality ingredients.

Custard tarts have long been a favourite pastry in Britain and the Commonwealth, where they are often called "egg custard tarts" or simply "egg custards" to distinguish the egg-based filling from the commonly served cornflour-based custards. They are sold in supermarkets and bakeries throughout the UK.

Pastel de nata (Portuguese: [pɐʃˈtɛl dɨ ˈnatɐ]; pl. : pastéis de nata; Portuguese: [pɐʃˈtɐjʒ ðɨ-])) is a Portuguese egg custard tart pastry, optionally dusted with cinnamon.

*The closest equivalent to Graham crackers in South Africa is a digestive biscuit. Tennis biscuits come in a close second. As a result, I made the base with half of each, but you could easily use 200g of either of them.

Can you leave custard tart out overnight? ›

There is no need to refrigerate most pastries if you are planning to consume them within the day, as the moisture from the fridge can turn them soggy. But for pastries with custard and other fillings, it is recommended that you store them in the fridge if you are not consuming them within 12 hours.

Putting the dough back in the fridge to rest for any time longer than 15 minutes – but ideally at least 30 minutes – allows the gluten to relax and allows the pastry to chill. Cool and relaxed pastry is far more likely to hold its shape when cooking.

Amasi, a cultured dairy product, is cultured (sour) milk that is manufactured by inoculating pasteurised milk with a specific bacterial culture. The end product has a firm texture, no gas bubbles and no separation of whey from the coagulum. It has a pleasant sour taste with a slight bite/prickliness on the tongue.

Traditionally made from carabao, or water buffalo, milk and white sugar, pastillas de leche are now more commonly made from a combination of cow milk, condensed milk, sugar, and/or powdered milk.

Also known as “Railway Coffee” – Condensed Milk is a classic South Africa favourite that is often added as a sweetener and creamer to coffee.

Amasi (in Ndebele, Zulu and Xhosa), emasi (in Swazi), maas (in Afrikaans), or mafi (in Sesotho), is a thick curdled sour fermented milk product that is sometimes compared to cottage cheese or plain yogurt but has a much stronger flavor.