Milk tart recipes: Real recipes for success!

As South Africans we love to bake, create, share… and eat! As we approach the holidays and festive season, we start to dust off the recipe books and google the latest food ideas so we can wow friends and family with delicious dishes.

Here are Tant’ Sannie se Melktert’s top reasons why we love cooking and why you should try your hand at some milk tart recipes using our lip-smacking liqueur.

1. It’s fun.

Cooking gives people a chance to be creative and indulge in some ‘play’ time – something adults could do with a lot more. Also, cooking with your children teaches them patience and precision(well, sometimes). You can lose yourself in the rituals of chopping, stirring and tasting.

2. It’s delicious.

When you’re cooking you get to choose what you make and what goes into each dish. You also get to choose the quality of the ingredients. So it’s easy to make things that are the most delicious to you.

Love chilli? Then add more. Love sharp, acidic flavours? Then add a splash of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon. Our personal favourite: sweet, lightly cinnamon-spiced creamy flavours!

Choose your own (tasty) adventure.

4. It’s good for the soul.

Spending 30 minutes in the kitchen preparing dinner or baking some muffins can put you in a much calmer, less frazzled mood than sitting on the couch for the same amount of time.

It also gives you an opportunity to nurture family and friends, by expressing my love and gratitude.

5. The praise!

Hearing the words ‘this is amazing’ or ‘how delicious, I love milk tart!’ are a huge motivator to keep spending time in the kitchen, especially when you’re first learning to how to cook.

Milk tart recipes, with a twist

This delicious dairy-laden tea time treat has very versatile flavours, which make it easy to find variations of what we all know as the traditional milk tart. Let’s push the milk tart envelope and dive into a new world of milk tart recipes.

Milk tart pancake mille-feuille:

MILK TART FILLING:

Method:

• To the basic pancake batter recipe, add the ¼ cup of water, sugar and cinnamon. Whisk until well combined.
• For the milk tart filling, heat 2 cups of milk and the cinnamon sticks in a saucepan over a medium heat. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the cornflour, cake flour, salt, castor sugar and eggs. Ensure the mixture is free from any lumps. Once the milk reaches boiling point, ladle half a cup of hot milk at a time into the egg mixture whisking all the while.
• Remove the cinnamon sticks and pour the milk mixture back into the pan. Over a low heat, bring the custard up to the boil, whisking all the while. Continue to cook for several minutes until the custard is thickened and to cook out the raw flour taste. Stir in the vanilla extract.
• Transfer the custard to a bowl and cover with cling film. Set aside to cool. Whisk the cream and icing sugar together until soft peak stage.
• Now whisk the cooled custard to loosen then fold half the cream into the custard.
• On a cake stand, start layering up the mille-feuille by placing a pancake on the base, spread with 2 tablespoons whipped custard cream. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar.
• Repeat until the filling has been used up. Pile the remaining whipped cream on top and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
• Chill for about an hour to firm up before slicing with a sharp, smooth blade knife.

Milk tart Springrolls

Ingredients (10)

Method:

• Place the milk, butter, vanilla pods and cinnamon sticks on low heat and take it to just before boiling point.
• Take a little milk and mix it with the flour, sugar and salt to form a paste, now add it to the milk mixture.
• Place back on the stove and let it cook through.
• Whisk the eggs and add it to the mixture. 
• Let it cook through.
• Let the mixture cool completely 
• Egg wash the edges of the pastry, fill with the mixture and roll into spring rolls.
• Deep fry at 180°C till golden brown.
• Roll in cinnamon sugar and serve as is or with Vanilla ice cream.