Wednesday, June 23, 2010

South African baking: milk tart

I'm on a South African baking kick. I've come across some great recipes from my childhood, the first I'll share with you is Milk Tart (aka Melk Tert). My mum used to make these by the dozen to give to friends. I might just have to do the same!

I had some filling left over so I poured it into a couple ramekins and chilled in the fridge for dessert. The best part about it is that it has the flavor of a rich dessert but it's not very rich at all, no cream, though a bit of sugar.


SERVES 10 -12

Ingredients

Pie Crust

  • 125 g butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cups flour, sifted
  • salt

Filling

  • 1 liter milk
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch)
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 10 ml vanilla essence

Directions

  1. Cream the margarine and sugar together and beat in the egg.
  2. Add the flour and salt and knead until a soft dough is formed.
  3. Press the mixture into a greased circular pie dish and bake at 350°F/180°C for 15 minutes.

Monday, June 14, 2010

train cake

I'm getting lots of practice on cakes for boys! My dear neighbors Wungsem and Vareho had a joint birthday party on the weekend. I made their dinosaur cake last year. This year they wanted a train cake, so I followed this trusty howdini.com video and had some fun!

This was made from two cakes baked in loaf pans. One cake for the engine and one cut into quarters for the cars.
All they need are some Oreo wheels and some colorful cargo and they're good to go!



All aboard!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Apple cake

This is not your typical "apple cake" :) It was for a friend who started a job at Apple. This cake was a fun challenge for me. The cake itself is a very simple design, but I enjoyed working with the fondant to get just the right colors, and then rolling it out as smooth as possible.