Americanized Milk Tart

As a bonus post for the month, I wanted to share a recipe I tried this month at a special lunch with a good friend.

While reading Leigh’s blog, (which I can’t remember how I first stumbled across, but is a wonderful read about family life in South Africa), she mentioned a classic South African dessert, milk tart. The picture looked yummy so I thought it would be a fun experiment.

I am not much of a cook and did not realize that this recipe is a smidge more complicated than it first appears until I was right in the middle of making it! The basic idea is that you mix together milk, sugar, eggs, cornstarch and flour over heat until it forms a custard! Whoever created this dessert is quite a genius. This was my first exposure to using cornstarch in this way and it was amazing. As you are stirring vigorously, the mixture starts out as thin milk, then you blink and it looks like cream, blink again and you have pudding/custard! Awesome!

I am cross-tagging this recipe as a Ruly Kids post. It is not necessarily an easy recipe but it would be a fun experiment for an older child or teen. You could win the science fair explaining the chemical reaction that goes on with the cornstarch.

The finished dessert is thick like cheesecake but creamy like pudding. It has a very mild vanilla/cinnamon flavor. If you like bolder flavors, make sure you pick a flavorful cookie for the crust. The traditional recipe calls for a South African cookie called “Tennis biscuits” with a coconut flavor. I couldn’t find any coconut-flavored cookies in my grocery store so I went with an almond-spice cookie.

The milk tart is so mild in flavor you could really experiment with the flavors. A chocolate cookie base might be yummy and I wonder if you could somehow make a chocolate milk tart filling. A citrus flavor like lime or lemon might also be yummy or you could add some liqueur.

One other note . . . due to my lack of culinary presentation skills, the finished product didn’t look all that appetizing in the baking dish. However, once it was sliced it looked gorgeous. If anyone has any tips on presentation, please share!

AMERICANIZED MILK TART
Recipe adapted from Hulett’s Sugars

Serves: about 9 (filling was enough to fill a 9” square pan about 1” high)

Ingredients

9 oz package Archway Windmill cookies (or cookie of your choice), crushed
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 cups whole milk
cinnamon stick
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup granulated sugar, depending on personal taste (I used 1/3 cup in my first attempt and would probably increase to 1/2 cup next time as I like my desserts sweet)
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
3 Tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons butter
Cinnamon and sugar for sprinkling

Directions

1. Crush the cookies and combine with the melted butter. Press into a pie pan. (Or, if you are like me and don’t own a pie pan, you can press it into the bottom of a square baking dish).
2. Heat the milk with the cinnamon stick until just under the boiling point.
3. Meanwhile, lightly beat the eggs with the sugar, then add cornstarch and flour.
4. Slowly pour the hot milk into the egg mixture stirring rapidly (be careful here as if the milk is too hot or you add to much at once you could end up with scrambled eggs).
5. Return the mixture to the heat and stir with a hand wisk as fast as you can continuously. (If you don’t stir quickly enough, you could end up with lumps.) This is when the very cool transformation from milk to cream to pudding occurs. The mixture gets thick very quickly and you need the momentum from the rapid stirring to be able to keep stirring as the mixture thickens.
6. Once you have a very thick pudding-like consistency, take the mixture off the heat and add the vanilla extract and butter. Stir well until the butter is melted.
7. Pour the mixture into the prepared crumb crust and sprinkle generously with cinnamon and sugar.

I am not sure if you can serve it right away. I would probably let it set up in the fridge for at least a few hours. I refrigerated my tart overnight and it didn’t seem to harm the flavor.

Since we are talking about money this month, I thought I would mention that this recipe is relatively budget-friendly. It costs about $5.00 to purchase the ingredients you might not have readily available (cookies, whole milk).

I hope you try the milk tart. If you do, please comment with your results!