Travel Dreams One girl's journey to live her dreams.

Passport & Plate - Milk Tart

South Africa | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 1 photos

Ingredients

Pastry

125 grams of softened butter

100 grams of sugar

1 egg

250 grams of flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

pinch of salt

a generous pinch of nutmeg

Filling

1.25 litres of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

3 eggs

200 grams of sugar

25 grams of flour

25 grams of cornflour (this is known as corn starch in the USA and Canada)

How to prepare this recipe

Pastry

Preheat your oven to 180ºc.

Cream together butter and sugar and as soon as you no longer see the sugar granules, add the egg and mix together.

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg on top of the butter mixture and blend together.

Divide the pastry between two pie dishes and then, using the palm of your hand and your fingers, cover the base and sides of the dish.

Cover the pastry with the baking paper and fill the pie dishes with your baking weights (I used dried beans).

Place these into the oven and bake for8 to 10 minutes.

Take the pastry out of the oven and remove the baking weights - be careful as they will be very hot.

Put the pastry back in the oven and bake until it has gone a very light golden brown. This will happen quickly, so be sure to keep an eye on it to prevent it from burning.

Remove the pastry from the oven and allow it to cool before attempting to remove it from the pie dish.



Filling

Beat the eggs and sugar together.

Add the flour and cornflour and mix.

Mix in the milk and vanilla essence until smooth.

Cook the filling in the microwave, stopping regularly to whisk it.

Continue this until the filling thickens. This will take longer than expected (at least in my microwave), and the filling does get extremely hot.

Once the filling has become a thick custard consistency, pour it into the two pastry cases. Sprinkle the top of the tart with a generous layer of cinnamon and leave your milk tart to cool in the refrigerator.

The story behind this recipe
My memories are the greatest souvenirs of my travels, and since eating is such an integral part of our lives, it is unsurprising that food evokes some of my favourite life moments. Champagne tasting in a dark cellar in France with my colleagues; sweet dates for Iftar in Abu Dhabi with strangers; tentative sips of bosintang, the controversial dog meat soup, in a street market in Seoul with my friends; and recently, watching somebody take their first bite of Milk Tart.

Since packing my bags and moving to South Korea four years ago, my favourite gift to give is a Milk Tart. A couple of hours in my kitchen result in my students literally licking their plates clean, my foreign friends insisting on the recipe, and my fellow South Africans declaring it better than their mother’s.

Milk Tart to me is more than just a simple dessert. It has the power to take me home faster than any airplane ever could. The instant I feel melancholy homesickness creeping towards me, I whip out my spatula and pie dish. I start measuring and weighing; sifting and mixing. I feel better with every egg cracked and oven timer ding. As I breathe in the cinnamon cloud, I am back to a childhood of hot African summers enjoyed with my family. The final soft, creamy spoonful fully rejuvenates me; and after the last remaining crumbs have been eaten, I am ready to continue on my voyage.