Melktert

Melktert is a South African sweet in which a pastry base is thickly filled with a custard made with milk and flavored with cinnamon. Its name means “milk tart” in Afrikaans.

The combination of milk, eggs, sugar and flour or cornstarch is shared, but the texture changes depending on the pastry base, the cooking method and whether the egg whites are whipped.

Two kinds of base and three ways of cooking the custard

Bases include a butter puff pastry whose thin layers shatter, as well as a crumbly, biscuit-like dough made by creaming butter and sugar. While some methods blind-bake the base before adding the custard, the Cape Malay method shared by Fatima Sydow pours a warm milk-and-egg mixture into chilled, unbaked biscuit dough and bakes them together. It uses a large square baking tray and is divided into portions after cooling.

The custard can be cooked in a pot, poured into the base and left to cool; set in the oven; or cooked using both a pot and the oven.

In one separated-egg method, in which the yolks and whites are used separately, cinnamon is first infused into the milk, which is then thickened with egg yolks, flour and cornstarch. The mixture is taken off the heat, butter and vanilla are added, and once it has cooled to room temperature, whipped egg whites are folded in without deflating the foam too much. This is poured into a blind-baked pastry case and baked, lowering the temperature from 180 degrees to 160 degrees.

Custard finished in a pot

Among home methods finished in a pot, there are also some in which the egg yolks and starch are cooked with milk, the egg-white foam is folded in after the heat is turned off, and the mixture is filled into a baked crust. Whether whole eggs are simply heated until set or whipped egg whites are added, the color may look similar, but the texture and lightness of the custard differ.

Infusing the milk with cinnamon

Besides being dusted on top as a powder, cinnamon is added to the milk as sticks to transfer its aroma. Some recipes also add vanilla, almond or citrus peel. In Sydow’s recipe, cinnamon sticks and cardamom pods are warmed with the milk to infuse it and are then removed.

The La Motte Museum in Franschhoek holds a cookbook with a cover painted by the artist J. H. Pierneef. Its recipe (ingredient proportions and method) for “old-fashioned Dutch milk tart” warms the milk with cinnamon, cooks it with starch, combines it with eggs and then bakes it in the oven. Both the method preserved in the cookbook and home recipes include the step of infusing the milk with aroma before cooking.

A baked melktert, with the milk filling in a crust and cinnamon dusted over the surface. Photo: DimiTalen, 2012-01-17, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Reduced-size version from the source, no further edits.

Cape food culture and two tarts from 1819

At the Cape, people began making milk-and-egg sweets introduced from Europe, and cooking methods from other regions were also incorporated. Those who cooked were not only Dutch settlers but also people brought from Asia who worked in household kitchens. Through these exchanges, ways of using spices, making pastry and cooking fillings have been passed down.

A handwritten cookbook dated October 15, 1819, introduced by the food culture historian Rachel C. Botes, lists two kinds of tart. The cover bears the name “Widow Blankenberg, née Zeeman,” and it contains a cream tart and a milk tart. For the former, a little flour is added to eggs and sweet cream or good milk; the mixture is cooled, put into a crust, baked and sprinkled with sugar. The latter is a short memo — 6 eggs, 2 spoonfuls of flour and 1 bottle of milk — with no detailed steps. A brief memo and a procedure describing the cooking and finishing coexist in a single book.

Methods preserved in an 1884 manuscript and a 1932 letter

The 1884 manuscript of Mrs. Hofmeyr, introduced by Botes, records milk, eggs, a little flour and cinnamon sugar in small-bowl measures and says nothing about finishing after cooking. It remains possible that it was a crustless baked custard, or that the writer saw no need to explain.

A 1932 letter contains advice to dissolve the flour and sugar in a little cold milk before adding them to hot milk, and to whip the egg whites firmly. Family records also preserve a range of methods, including a soft dough that is spread out, a crust made with oil, a biscuit base and versions with no crust. The short manuscripts alone do not reveal in detail how the tart was baked at the time.

A teatime sweet passed down in families

This sweet served with tea or coffee is also enjoyed on February 27, “Milk Tart Day.” In a 2014 cooking program, a grandmother and grandchild won their category with their family’s melktert. Although the focus on milk is shared, each family passes down its own differences in the pastry base, the way the egg whites are whipped and the flavoring.

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