Milk tart, Cape Malay style

After a whole lot of coaxing from the kids & my taste buds, I finally managed to make some milk tart after a long while. I just love the homemade variety, the commercial one contains too much cornflour & doesn't taste as good. Secondly, you can have yours as soon as it comes out of the oven, instead of a cold commercial one (which can be warmed in the microwave, but humour me, ok.)

With winter almost on our doorstep, the hot milk tart will make a good end to your supper too.

For the base you will need:

200ml castor sugar

30ml sunflower oil

250g butter

2 eggs

5ml vanilla essence

500ml cake flour, sifted

500ml self-raising flour, sifted

For the filling you will need:

10 eggs

125ml sugar

1 litre milk

30ml custard powder

15ml cake flour

5ml sugar

10ml vanilla essence

5 drops almond essence (optional)

2 pieces stick cinnamon

3 cardamom pods (elachi)

60ml butter

3ml ground cinnamon

For the base: Beat sugar, oil & butter in a large bowl till light & fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla essence until well blended. Mix in flours until you have a soft dough. Using two thirds of the dough, press into rectangular oven dish including sides. Allow to rest in the fridge until the filling is ready.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius or 310 degrees fahrenheit.

For the filling: Beat eggs & sugar in a very large bowl till thick & well blended, set aside. Mix 50ml milk with the custard powder, flour & 5ml sugar. Heat the rest of the milk in a saucepan until it reaches boiling point, remove from heat. Stir in custard mixture and mix well. Slowly pour milk mixture into eggs, while beating continuously. Add vanilla essence, almond essence (if using), cardamom pods & stick cinnamon & mix well. Pour filling into prepared biscuit crust, dot with 60 ml butter & sprinkle with 3ml ground cinnamon. Bake for 35-45 minutes until set.

With the one third of biscuit pastry that is left, I normally make some hertzoggies too!! YUMMEH!! They're my favorite because it contains coconut & apricot jam. I normally hide them away, for these treats I DON'T like sharing!! LOL!! Only drawback is I won't stop gobbling them up until they're all done. OI!!

For hertzoggies you will need:

biscuit pastry

apricot jam

coconut filling (heat coconut, sugar to taste, butter & hot water in saucepan until sugar & butter has melted)

Roll out the left over dough till about 3mm thick, cut out rounds using a cookie cutter. I normally use the flower-shaped one. Spray a patty pan with non-stick spray. Place biscuit rounds into each cavity. Place a half teaspoon of coconut filling onto one side of biscuit round & a half teaspoon apricot jam on the other side. Bake at 180 degrees celsuis or 360 degrees fahrenheit for about 8-10 minutes. Be careful not to bake it too long so as not to burn the coconut or the jam.