Kerri and I came up with a rather ambitious plan for the World Cup – to try to cook the food of the participants on the day that they were playing. We figured that we could probably get through roughly half of the countries involved, which is probably a bit over-ambitious but something to aim for at least.
With the first game involving the hosts South Africa, that was obviously where we needed to start. One of the most popular South African desserts is milk tart, or “melktert” which is the Afrikaans translation. The tart originated from a Dutch custard tart centuries ago, which Malay cooks in South Africa personalised with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Having grown up in South Africa, I’ve eaten it many times but never tried to cook it before and it surprised me when the first recipe that I found on the web didn’t include a crust. I thought it was a little strange to have a tart without a crust, and searched around for another recipe and found one that included pastry. But due to laziness eventually tried the crustless one anyway!
I think I overdid the cinnamon because the top of the tart was completely brown rather than the white with brown speckles that is common, but it certainly tasted good. The base and edge had actually formed itself into something of a soft “crust” during the cooking process, which when I tasted it seemed instantly familiar – the crustless version must be quite common.
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Would appreciate if you could share the recipe of the milk tart. It looks delicious
.-= Christine Tham´s last blog ..CHOCOLATE CHEESE BROWNIE =-.
Mmmm, milk tart! Reminds me of every school bake sale I ever attended 🙂 – and I see no problem with the lots of cinnamon! My favourite recipe uses a puff pastry & whips the egg yolks & whites separately to make it fluffy: http://www.cooksister.com/2007/11/waiter-theres-1.html
Yum!
.-= Jeanne @ CookSister!´s last blog ..Saturday Snapshots #94 =-.
Jeanne, the school bake sale thing occurred to me too 🙂 I should have written more about that sort of thing, but I was typing up three posts at once while battling a hangover and it was all I could do to put semi-coherent sentences together. I’ll certainly try your puff pastry version next time I cook one!
Oh this reminds me of my nana, she always made it for us when they came over from SA. I hadn’t thought of trying it myself I’ll investigate your recipe.
.-= Pen´s last blog ..I’m right up the road – even if it’s rocky =-.
Christine the recipe is linked in the post 🙂
How about English Steak and Chips, or Pigs Trotters, Shepherds PIe or Lamb Shoulder (slow roasted of course) lol
We thought we would save England for the next round but that might not be a good plan judging by recent results!