Great Aunt May’s Family Milk Tart

Great Aunt May’s Family Milk Tart

by | Feb 6, 2017 | 5 comments

It seems every nation has their own version of a custard tart – the Portuguese have pasteis de nata, the British have their vanilla custard tarts, Italians their ‘torta di nonna’ and our South African milk tart sort of falls somewhere in the middle with it’s cinnamon topping. No matter what part of the world you’re from, it seems we’re all unanimously in love with the combination of a creamy egg custard and a crisp pastry base.

With heritage in mind, I knew there was only one place to go for a proper milk tart recipe in honour of National Milk Tart Day which is today! So I dug out my Great Aunt May’s tattered recipe book (I’ve written about her before). There, right in the very front, was our family recipe for milk tart. There are no notes on where it came from, but I found the same recipe scribbled in the margins of my grandmothers book so I know it’s a family favourite!

The pastry is an interesting one – it contains oil, which is a little odd for me, but ensures a ridiculously crumbly pastry. From her other recipes, I can tell Great Aunt May loved a good shortcut, and this one is no exception. This pastry? It doesn’t need to be blind baked! Yes, you read correctly. Can I get a hallelujah on that?! ‘Cos if you’ve ever had to fuss with beans and baking paper and all that nonsense, you’ll be rejoicing with me now!

The filling is lusciously velvety with just the slightest quiver – I prefer my milk tart a bit softer than most so if you like yours more set, then just increase the cornstarch. This recipe also makes the sweetest little mini milk tarts – I made these using an old-fashioned madeleine tin which belonged to my grandmother. It seemed totally appropriate for the occasion.

My Family Milk Tart

Recipe by Great Aunty May

Makes 1 large tart or 24 small tartlets

 

No-fuss pastry

110g butter, softened

2 tbsp (30ml) castor sugar

2 tbsp (30ml) vegetable oil

1 egg

2 cups (500ml) cake flour

1 tsp (5ml) baking powder

pinch of salt

 

Filling

600ml milk

2 tbsp (30ml) cornstarch/cornflour

1 tbsp (15ml) cake flour

4 tbsp (60ml) sugar

3 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon, plus extra for dusting

Cream the butter and castor sugar until light and fluffy. Add the oil and egg and beat well. Mix in the flour, baking powder and salt to form a soft pastry. Press a thin layer of the pastry into a greased standard pie dish. Prick the bottom and bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool. For the filling, bring the milk to a boil (I added a cinnamon stick and bay leaf to mine). In the meantime, whisk together the cornstarch, flour, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and cinnamon and a little of the milk to make a creamy paste. Pour the hot milk over the paste, whisking continuously then return to the heat and cook until thickened. Whisk the egg whites until stiff then whisk into the still-warm filling. Pour the mixture into the baked tart case and sprinkle with extra cinnamon.

Cheat’s Chocolate Caramel Tarts

Cheat’s Chocolate Caramel Tarts

by | Jun 24, 2016 | 0 comments

#SPONSORED

I’m all for cheat’s anything when it comes to eating – especially when it comes to cravings! The quicker I can get from the making part to the eating part, the better! A few weeks ago, I discovered a ground-breaking new way of making shortcrust tart cases. While I’m all for making pastry from scratch and resting, rolling and blind-baking, sometimes, you just want to eat more than you want to bake and that’s okay – which is why this recipe will change your life. Shortbread biscuits, people. The answer was there all along – duh! Simply crush up the biscuits with some butter, press them into the tart cases and bake for 10 minutes and hey, presto (as they say), you’ve got tart!

While I’m all for shortcuts, the one thing I don’t cut the corner on is proper caramel sauce – nothing from a bottle or ready-made can EVER replace a proper homemade caramel sauce. I like to use sugar with flavour AND sweetness, and while boring white sugar gives you the latter, my favourite unrefined, Natura Light Muscovado Sugar, gives you both – double whammy! And because just two layers of deliciousness is never enough, I’ve topped these tarts with dark chocolate (the good stuff) and a sprinkling of sea salt for some salty crunch. Cheating never tasted THIS good!

Cheat’s Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Tarts

Makes 4

 

200g (half a packet) shortbread biscuits (I used Eet Sum Mores)

1 tbsp melted butter

165g Natura Light Muscovado Sugar or Natura Soft Brown Sugar

¼ cup water

½ cup cream

25g butter

200g good-quality dark chocolate, melted (I use AFRIKOA 70% Dark Chocolate)

sea salt flakes, for sprinkling

 

Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan-forced). Grease 4 x small spring form tart tins. Place the shortbread biscuits in a food processor and pulse until very fine – almost powdery consistency. Add the butter and mix to form a consistency similar to wet sand. Use a teaspoon to press the biscuit crumbs into the prepared tart tins to form a pastry case then bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool thoroughly. To make the caramel, place the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer until the mixture reaches 140C on a thermometer or until soft crack stage – when a little caramel dropped into a cup of water forms a soft ball which gets hard after a minute. Add the cream and butter and swirl until combined. Remove from the heat and pour into the baked pastry cases. Allow to cool completely then spread with the melted chocolate. Sprinkle a few sea salt flakes on top and allow to set – if you can wait that long that is!

Disclaimer: This post has been created in collaboration with Natura Sugars, however, I only work with brands I think are awesome and that I actually use myself.
Granadilla Fridge Tart

Granadilla Fridge Tart

by | May 30, 2016 | 5 comments

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, by now you would’ve seen my dear friend Zola Nene’s smiling face either on Expresso Morning Show or on every bookshelf in the country with her beautiful new cookbook, Simply Delicious. It’s a collection of incredibly good-looking food interwoven with stories of her childhood and her food journey.  One of the things I love most about Zola’s food is how unpretentious it is – and this tart is a great example. Even though she is a trained chef, she has no airs and graces about using a packet of jelly mix, a tin of condensed milk and some crushed biscuits when it’s needed – basically, she’s one of us, guys!  When I saw this recipe, I was immediately transported back to being a kid – my mom used to make a recipe just like this, but with pineapple instead of granadilla and I think we all have a version of this fridge tart somewhere in our childhood!

Even though Zola and I both grew up in George (which basically means George people are insanely cool btw), and went to the same high school AND chef school , we only became food soul mates 8 years ago when, thanks to a happy coincidence, we worked together at Top Billing and Expresso Morning Show. Zola is one of those people who is just incredibly fun to be around and her passion for food is infectious! Like me, she understands that cravings give life direction and together, there is nothing we wouldn’t do to satisfy a demanding craving – we once walked what felt like 100km around Durban in search of a curry – I think we’re both still recovering from that! Not to mention that we never got that craving satisfied! Whether we were doing cooking classes together, shooting inserts, braving deadlines or travelling across the country, there would always be lots of laughter, general silliness and always, always good food!   Not-surprisingly, our catch-ups always revolve around eating – whether it’s visiting a new restaurant, driving across town for a flaky pastry or having a heated debate about some new food trend, the one thing I can rely on is that Zola will ALWAYS order dessert with me and if that isn’t yet another reason to love her then I don’t know what is!

Extracted from Simply Delicious by Zola Nene (Struik Lifestyle)

Granadilla Fridge Tart

Extracted from Simply Delicious by Zola Nene (Struik Lifestyle)

Serves 8

 

200 g coconut biscuits, crushed

100 g butter, melted

40 g granadilla jelly powder

250 ml boiling water

250 g cream cheese, at room temperature

385 g can condensed milk

pulp of 4 granadillas

Mix the crushed biscuits and butter, press into a 23-cm tart tin and refrigerate. Dissolve the jelly powder in the boiling water and set aside to cool. Combine the cream cheese and condensed milk in a bowl and then add the cooled jelly. Pour the mixture into the chilled tart base and allow to set in the fridge. Slice the tart and spoon some granadilla pulp over each helping.

Simply Delicious Book and Granadilla Tart Photographs: © Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd / Dawie Verwey 

Peppermint Crisp Tart Ice Cream Sandwiches

Peppermint Crisp Tart Ice Cream Sandwiches

by | Mar 2, 2016 | 0 comments

These peppermint crisp ice cream sandwiches are one of my favourite flavours of South African summer. Inspired by a ‘local ‘n lekker’ dessert, peppermint crisp tart, it is made with only 4 ingredients (like the pudding which inspired it) but is a much better suitor for our steamy climate. It’s so easy you can rope (read: trick) the kids into making them (while you read a book or pour a glass of wine) and the little sarmies are great for serving after a lazy weekend braai. I’ve done many a twist on peppermint crisp tart – like this Caramel Peppermint Crisp Cake or this Peppermint Crisp Mousse Cake. There’s a pattern here… putting two desserts into one. Well, because if you have a sweet tooth and have ever had to choose between two desserts, you’ll know that it’s a torturous nightmare. Two desserts in one. Problem solved! Because too much of a sweet thing is never enough!

 

 

Image of a peppermint crisp ice cream sandwich in between coconut tennis biscuits

Peppermint Crisp Ice Cream Sandwiches

Serves 6

 

1 packet (250g) coconut biscuits

250ml cream

1/2 (400g) tin caramel

1 peppermint crisp bar (80g), crumbled

 

To make the peppermint crisp ice cream, beat the cream until stiff then fold in the caramel and peppermint crisp, leaving a few swirls. Freeze the mixture in a baking dish so it’s about 2cm thick, until firm. Once firm, arrange the tennis biscuits on top and cut the ice cream into squares. Remove each square, sandwiching another tennis biscuit on the bottom of each ice cream slice. Arrange on a baking tray and freeze again until firm.

TIP

Caramel Peppermint Crisp Cake

Caramel Peppermint Crisp Cake

by | Sep 21, 2014 | 4 comments

I heard someone once describe our beloved peppermint crisp tart as ‘a lazy version of Italian tiramisu’, which, once you get over the initial offence, is a pretty accurate description really. Four ingredients: Tennis biscuits (don’t even bother asking me if there is an alternative flavour of biscuit you can use because any South African will tell you there just isn’t), tinned caramel (if you’re feeling fancy, boiling a tin of condensed milk will make it ‘gourmet’), whipped cream (well, if you want to be AUTHENTIC it should be that non-dairy Orley whip cream…) and of course the darling of South African chocolates, Peppermint Crisp (those shards of sticky peppermint covered in chocolate are pure bliss!).

I must be honest, I never grew up with peppermint crisp tart. It doesn’t conjure up memories of my grandmother serving it to me as a child, or my mom whipping up a pyrex dish of it for a church bazaar. The decadent dessert was completely left out of my childhood (my mom and I will have words about this!) but that hasn’t stopped me from cramming all the tart I missed out on as a child into my adult life. I’ve given the dessert it’s fair share of makeovers – from ice cream sandwiches to milkshakes, but this cake is a serious showstopper! It’s not as sweet as it’s traditional counterpart due to the coconutty sponge cake layers in between and it will make a jaw-dropping end to a lekker braai!

Caramel Peppermint Crisp Cake

Serves 10-12

Adapted from Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days

120g butter, softened

400g castor sugar

360g cake flour

1½ tbsp baking powder

40g desiccated coconut, toasted

pinch of salt

3 large eggs

1 tin (400ml) coconut milk

Filling

1 tin caramel

2 cups cream, whipped to stiff peaks

400g peppermint crisp chocolate, crushed

Mini Tennis biscuits , to garnish

Preheat the oven to 170C and line 3 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking paper. Beat the butter, castor sugar, flour, baking powder, coconut and salt together on a low speed until a sandy texture forms. Whisk the eggs and coconut milk together in a jug then slowly add to the dry ingredients while the mixer is running, to form a batter. Divide the cake batter evenly between the prepared tins and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean, and the cakes are golden. Allow to cool a little in the tin before turning out onto a cake rack. Trim the cooled cakes by levelling the tops then place one cake layer on a plate. Spread with caramel, whipped cream, peppermint crisp and crushed biscuits.  Continue layering finishing with the caramel, cream, peppermint crisp and the mini biscuits. Refrigerate for 1 hour to set then slice and serve.