Traditional South African Milk Tart

Traditional South African Milk Tart (Melk Tert) – crispy sweetcrust pastry filled with creamy custard and sprinkled with cinnamon.  If this doesn’t get you licking your fingers, then nothing will!

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Note – the ingredients for this recipe have been updated to correct a miscalculation in converting the flour and sugar from cups to grams. The cup measurements in the original recipe were correct but the grams were overstated.

What is Milk Tart?

A traditional South African Milk Tart (Melk Tert) is a South African dessert very similar to an English Custard tart but made with more milk and fewer eggs.

It originated from the Dutch settlers who arrived in Cape Town in the mid 17th Century, and has become firmly entrenched in every South African household.    You will find homemade milk tarts for sale at every School Bazaar or Church Fete.  And whilst the basic recipe remains the same you will find every household has its own favourite version

Some recipes (like this one) call for the cinnamon to be sprinkled on top.  Other recipes call for the cinnamon to be infused into the milk.  You can use different types of pastry – puff pastry, shortcrust, sweetcrust. There are variations in how the filling is prepared – either on the stove top or baked in the pastry shell in the oven.  The variations are endless.

This recipe calls for the pastry to be baked in the oven. The filling is made on the stove top and poured into the baked pastry shells. It is then placed in the fridge to set. There is no need to bake the filling in the oven.

But however you make it, it is the most delicious tea-time treat and you will find it impossible to stop at ‘just one slice’.

Ingredients for Milk Tart

For a handy printable recipe, see the recipe card further down the post.

To make a milk tart you will need the following ingredients:

For the sweetcrust pastry

• ½ cup (115g / 120ml) Butter
• 1 cup (200g / 240ml) Sugar
• 1 large Egg
• 2 cups (240g / 480ml) Plain Flour or use Self-Raising flour and omit the baking powder
• 2 teaspoons (10g / 10ml) Baking Powder if using plain flour.
• ½ teaspoon Salt

This recipe has been created and tested at sealevel. If you are making this recipe at a high altitude, you may find that you should use plain flour and omit the baking powder altogether.

For the filling

• 4 cups (2 pints / 1100 ml) Milk
• 1 Tablespoon (15g / 15ml) Butter
• 2 Tablespoons (20g / 35ml) Flour
• 2 Tablespoons (20g / 35ml) Cornflour
• ½ cup (100g / 120ml) Sugar
• 2 large Eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon to sprinkle

How to make milk tart

For the pastry

This is a very soft pastry and you won’t be able to roll it. Instead, the pastry is pressed with your fingers into the pie dish before being baked in the oven.

• Cream the butter and sugar together until pale yellow in colour and the sugar has dissolved.
• Add the egg and beat well to combine.
• Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder and blend it all together. 
• I find it easiest to use my hands to do this.  I just spread my fingers and stir the dough until it comes together in a very soft ball. 
• You may find you need to add a small amount of flour at this stage to prevent the dough sticking to your fingers.  Don’t add too much or the pastry will become tough.  Likewise, don’t overwork the dough, just mix it sufficiently to bring it all together.
• As I mentioned, this is a very soft pastry so you can’t roll it out.  You need to press it into the pie dish.  This recipe makes enough to line 2 x 9-inch pie dishes.
• Divide the dough in half and place each half into a greased 9″ pie dish. Press the dough gently with your fingers until the pie dish is evenly covered with the pastry. Don’t forget to coat the sides of the dish as well.
• Place the pastry into a pre-heated oven at 190C/350F for 10 minutes until lovely and golden. Then remove from the oven.
• It will be softish when you take it out of the oven but it will crisp up as the pastry cools.

For the filling

• Mix the flour, cornflour and sugar in a bowl and beat in 2 eggs until all the lumps are gone.  Set aside.
• Heat the milk, vanilla and butter in a large saucepan until it just comes to the boil an the butter is melted.
• Remove from the heat.
• Take about 1/2 a cup of hot milk and stir it into the egg and flour mixture. Then stir all the egg and flour mixture into the hot milk in the saucepan. Mixing a little of the hot milk to the flour mixture prevents lumps from forming.
• Return the saucepan to the heat, and let it simmer (stirring continuously) until it thickens.  When it is thick enough it will start to make ‘blooping’ sounds, and it will look as though air bubbles are escaping.
• Pour the mixture into the 2 pie shells, sprinkle with cinnamon, let it cool and pop it into the fridge to chill. 
• The filling will thicken when it is cold and you will be able to cut slices with a sharp knife.  You may find you need a cake-slice to remove the first slice from the dish.

Some people like to eat milk tart warm, but I find it is still too runny.  For me, the only way to eat it is chilled, straight from the fridge.

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Additional resources

Don’t forget to check out my handy Cookery Conversion Calculator if you want to convert any of your recipe measurements from grams to cups, ounces, tablespoons or millilitres and vice versa. You can also use the calculator for converting oven temperatures between Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas marks.

If you live at a high altitude you may find you need to adjust your baking recipes to compensate for this. You can read all about it in this post on baking at high altitudes.

Recipe – Milk Tart

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Did you enjoy this recipe, or do you have your own version of milk tart – if so please leave a comment and let me know.  I’d love to hear from you.