Welcome to South Africa, world! Milk Tart recipe

Wooooo hooo!!!  The Fifa World Cup has come to South Africa!  The atmosphere's electric!  People are going crazy!  The traffic going into town is completey choc-a-bloc!  There's so much noise!  Yippee!

Alright, alright.  I'll settle down.  In fact, for those of you reading this that know me personally, you're probably confused already (that's if you didn't pick up the note of sarcasm).  I'm not remotely interested in football.  I was the weird girl in school because I didn't support a team like everyone else, and I once got chastised badly for pretending to support Turkey in a previous world cup match against England, in a very English high school.  Sorry, I'm just not very patriotic when it comes to sport (if ever).  I have dual nationality (British and South African) and I have nothing against either country, nothing at all.  I think that every country has it's beauty and charm.  I just fail to get excited about a bunch of highly overpaid men kicking a ball around trying to get it into a net.  I have no problem if you want to play the game to keep fit etc, but I can't really understand why people obsess over watching it.  All the time.

Take South Africa, for example. A country that straddles the 1st and 3rd world border,quite significantly.  On the weekends, my husband and I (along with his brothers and sister in law who totally run the project) go to a township in Cape Town called Delft. Here, only a mere 15 minutes drive from the safe and comfortable leafy suburb in which I live, is a vast area where people live in poor excuses for houses.  We're talking corrugated iron roofs, thin board-like walls, and in the area called Blikkiesdorp (small tin town) people live in so-called residences that resemble what you and I call a porto-cabin.  A mobile toilet, except, it's supposed to be a house.  They share a toilet with 5 other 'houses'.  The area's infested with crime.  Children can't go to school because it's become risky to walk. Most people have no other means of transport, meaning that unemployment is also rife.  How is this World Cup benefiting those people, and countless others?

Anyway, I'm digressing.  The football tournament is here now, and even if I'm not interested in the sport, I can still be a good host and welcome our foreign visitors into this beautiful land.  Welcome, visitors!  Enjoy your stay in South Africa.  Enjoy soaking up our gloriously diverse culture and eating our unrivalled sumptuous cuisine.  And here's my little offering - for the next few weeks, during the World Cup, I propose to 'pepper' my blog with what I'll call South Africa's Best Bakes (although some may not be bakes at all, as we're rather good at fridge desserts and deep fried things as well).  I'm kicking off now (haha-the irony) with Milk Tart (Melktert).  I think the first time I can remember having this was when my sister-in-law Ziemie made it for us when she was just a newlywed.  I thought it was fabulous then, and I have a soft spot for it because my Dad loves custard tarts, and this is pretty much the same thing.

This recipe has been slightly adapted from the original recipe in the Capetonian housewife's bible, Boeka Treats.


Ingredients:

Base:
125g butter
125ml (1/2 cup) caster sugar
1 small egg (or 1/2 large egg)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
250ml (1 cup) self raising flour
250ml (1 cup) plain flour

Filling:
400g (1 tin) condensed milk
1tsp vanilla essence
Pinch salt
9 eggs (yes, 9)
3 1/2 cups boiling water
3-4 pieces stick cinnamon
3-4 pieces crushed cardamom
30 ml (2 tbsp) butter

Method:

Biscuit base:
- Cream the butter and sugar.
- Add the egg and vanilla and mix.
- Sift in the flour to form a firm dough.

Filling:
- Line a pyrex dish (25x35cm) with the biscuit base dough, breaking off peices of dough and pressing it onto the the base and sides of the dish.  Refrigerate.
- Pour condensed milk into a bowl, add the boiling water, butter, cinnamon and cardamom. Add vanilla and salt.
- Allow to cool.
- Beat the eggs and add to the cooled off mixture. Mix well.
- Take out the lined dish from the fridge.  Strain the egg-milk mixture into the lined dish.  Sprinkle the top with a little ground cinnamon.
- Bake at 180 degrees until it's set (about 45 mins).

Enjoy!