While researching a new baking recipe, I came across a South African dessert: Melktert, which means milk tart. The ingredients are common and it just sounds very good. So we tried out the recipe for Melktert on a Friday afternoon; if you have become curious, this is our recipe:
Recipe for a South African Milk Tart – Melktert
Ingredients:
- 500 g frozen puff pastry
- 1 tsp butter for greasing the baking tin
- 750 ml milk
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 25 ml cold milk
- 2 tsp vanilla pudding powder
- 3 tbsp flour
- 3 tsp cornstarch
- 60 g + 60 g sugar
- 4 eggs, separated
- optional: 6 drops bitter almond oil
- 1-2 tbsp cinnamon for decoration
- round baking tin, 26 cm
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 200°C (top and bottom heat). Grease the baking tin with a little butter and line it with the puff pastry. We first placed one sheet of puff pastry into the tin, simply cut off the ends with scissors, and 'stuck' them to the edge. Then we added the second puff pastry sheet and trimmed everything to fit again.
For the filling, bring the 750 ml of milk to a boil with the pinch of salt, 1 tbsp of butter, and the cinnamon stick. Remove the whole thing from the stove. Mix the 25 ml of cold milk well with the pudding powder, cornstarch, and flour. Add this flour mixture spoonful by spoonful to the boiled cinnamon milk, add 60 g of sugar, stir well with a whisk, and bring to a boil again. Let the mixture simmer a little, then remove from the heat and remove the cinnamon stick. The mixture should thicken slightly.
Separate the 4 eggs and first beat the egg whites with the remaining 60 g of sugar until stiff. Beat the egg yolks with a hand mixer until creamy. First, add the egg yolk to the milk mixture and then fold in the stiff egg whites and mix well. Finally, add the bitter almond oil, but be careful, it tastes very intense; I would rather use less or you can leave it out entirely.
Pour the milk mixture into the baking tin with the puff pastry and bake in the oven at 200°C (top and bottom heat) for approx. 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 180°C and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until done.
Let the milk tart cool down and sprinkle with a little cinnamon before serving.
The puff pastry can be replaced with shortcrust pastry.
What I personally don't like so much is the bitter almond oil aroma. Our recipe called for 2 ml, I only used half and that was already too much for me. Next time I would leave it out completely and add more cinnamon or a vanilla aroma instead. But that is a matter of taste. Otherwise, I find this milk tart very good and will make it again.
Read also: Recipe for vegan apple tart with only 8 ingredients
Photo by Sabine, meinhaushalt.at
