The Cottage Smallholder

This is probably THE default baked dessert in South Africa (across pretty much all culture groups).  It is whipped out for birthdays, funerals, christenings, any social gathering really.

The crust in this recipe was added by my mother and is a biscuit crust.  Traditionally a pastry case is used however it adds little to the dish and the traditional pastry was used just to soak up excess moisture from the filling and seldom eaten.  As the filling has been tweaked over the years and sets well, this is no longer necessary in our opinion.

Milktart

Crust:

1 cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup margarine or butter

1 egg

1 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

Mix together well, adding more flour if needed to form a firm dough, then chill, roll out to line a large pan (oven roaster size) or 3 tinfoil pie plates.

Filling:

2 litres milk (whole or semi-skimmed)

50 g margarine or butter

5 eggs

1 cup sugar

150ml cornflour

125ml flour

1tsp vanilla essence

cinnamon

Boil the milk and margarine or butter in a large pot (can also do this in a microwave).  Beat the eggs and sugar until creamy.  Add the cornflour, flour and vanilla essence.  Beat until smooth.  Add some of the hot milk to this mixture and blend.  Add the mixture to the milk in the pot.  Return to heat and stir well to prevent lumps.  When the mixture thickens, pour it into the crust.  Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.  Bake at 180 C for approximately 20 minutes (the mixture should puff above the crust and brown slightly).

We have made this very successfully with lactofree milk and substituting Splenda for sugar.  This milktart should be chilled before serving and improves on standing to about 3 days (develops a more caramel flavour).  There are lighter textured milktart recipes out there but we have stuck to this one simply because it never flops…and can feed a small army.