Milk Tart/Melktert – Easy, Rich and Creamy – Perfect entertaining pie with an easy press-on pastry crust. 
It doesn’t take much to make this delicious, perfect-for-entertaining tart. This popular South African milk tart qualifies as one of those quick and easy tarts to whip up in a pinch. All the ingredients for this milk tart are right in your pantry – no extra shopping needed and it is all made from scratch. And the best part – it is very comforting and great for the holiday season. 
Milk Tart or as the Afrikaans call it Melktert is a creamy milky tart. A little reminiscent of custard pie but more delicate, with a lighter texture and a strong milk presence. Don’t wait for this pie to firm up – it just doesn’t, more of a pudding with a crust. It is made with a sweet pastry crust often referred to as Pate sablée, the good thing about this pastry is that you do not have to worry about rolling it out – all you do is press the crust into the pie pan – freeze for 30 minutes and then bake without weight. Freezing prevents the pie from rising. 
Here are a couple of tips when making milk tart
- You can make the crust ahead of time, bake and leave out until ready to be use.
- Use store bought pastry pie if you are pressed on time
- Switch up the flavors, I used nutmeg and cinnamon
- A lot of recipes call for throwing in a cinnamon stick so it infuses the milk mixture – if you have some handy by all means use it, if not just use cinnamon spice.
Enjoy!
Milk Tart
Ingredients
Sucre Patee (Pastry Crust)
- 1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup (35grams ) confectioner’s sugar powdered sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 9 Tablespoons (125grams) unsalted butter(cold or frozen) , cut into small pieces
- 1 large egg yolk
Milk filling
- 2 1/4 ( 496 ml) cups milk
- 2 tablespoon (28grams) butter
- 2 tablespoons (20 grams) flour
- 3-4 tablespoons (23- 30grams) cornstarch
- 1/2 cup (100grams) sugar
- 2 Large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract (optional)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg or replace with cinnamon
Instructions
Pastry Crust
- Butter or spray a 9-inch pie pan with a removable bottom – making sure it is has been adequately sprayed. Set aside
- Place flour, salt and sugar in a food processor pulse for a couple of times to mix ingredients.
- Throw in butter and pulse until rough dough forms.
- Then add egg yolk - pulse until the dough barely comes.
- Remove dough place on a work surface - knead just enough to incorporate all the dough. Working the dough as little as possible.
- Do not overwork the dough; otherwise it’ll be too tough. When it’s ready, the dough will be barely moistened and come together into a ball.
- Lightly press the dough on the prepare pie pan – working from the center up until the bottom and sides are fully covered with pastry – again be very gentle when pressing the dough onto the pie pan.
- Place pie pan in the freezer and freeze for at least 30 minutes or more this helps prevent the dough from rising- if you are in a rush brick, then bake with beans to prevent rising.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven
- Bake crust for about 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is dry and golden browned. Set aside
Milk Filling
- Place saucepan over medium heat, add butter, nutmeg and milk -bring to a boil and remove from the heat.
- In another bowl, mix together flour, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla and almond extract- whisk in eggs until smooth. Gently whisk into the saucepan making sure there are no lumps
- Now return the pan back on the stove – keep stirring constantly until in starts to bubble.
- Cook for about 5-6 minutes. Remove from heat and pour mixture into the baked pastry shell Sprinkle with cinnamon. Chill until ready to be served.
Tips & Notes:
- You can make the crust ahead of time, bake and leave out until ready to be use.
- Use store bought pastry pie if you are press for time
- Switch up the flavors, I used nutmeg and cinnamon- just love the flavor combination
- A lot of recipes call for throwing in cinnamon stick so it infuses the milk mixture – if you have some handy by all means use it, if not just use cinnamon spice.
Nutrition Information:
Dan says
The recipe looks good and I tried it but you need to edit your recipe as there is a mistake. You need to add cinnamon to the method part of your recipe for the filling. Because it is only listed in the ingredients part and not the method part for the filling, I forgot to include it until I had already poured the custard into the pie dish and then had to add cinnamon and stir the custard in my already baked pie. I would also put much less almond essence and nutmeg because this makes the tart not taste like a traditional milk tart.
Marley says
Dear Imma,
South Africa is one of my favorite places in the world. I tried your recipe and it worked out perfectly and instantly transfers me back there. Thanks sooo much for sharing and I can’t wait to try more recipes. Best wishes from Europe 🙂
Marley
Christine Cullen says
Hello. American here! I made a milktart for my neighbor and botched it up, not sure how. I looked for a better recipe, came across this one and just made it – the crust looks perfect, the filling smooth and creamy and it’s chilling now. Question? The one that came out poorly was baked in an unbaked shell. Your recipe only calls for the shell to be baked and the filling to be poured into the shell and cooled before cutting. Is there a “right” South African milk tart – that is, are they usually baked or usually not baked, like yours? Thanks for the pictures in the recipe instrucitons, helplful!
ImmaculateBites says
Hi Christine,
So happy to hear it worked out well for you.
I can’t say with all certainty if there is right or wrong way of making this. Recipes are evolving… in my opinion , it’s always makes sense to slightly bake the tart shell first , before adding the milk tart . Hope this helps
Summer says
Hi Christine, traditional milk tarts are made simply by blending biscuits and butter to form a mouldable base. Just press it into the tin and add the filling then slap it in the fridge. No baking required 😉 Easy as pie. Love from South Africa xx
Tamarin says
Hubby loved it thanks
Joe Parker says
How long does the tart keep for???
imma africanbites says
Hi. You may keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days.
Dawn Summerfield says
Silly question but what type of milk do you recommend using? Full fat, semi skimmed or skimmed?
ImmaculateBites says
I would recommend full-fat milk because it makes it creamier. You could still use the semi-skimmed or skimmed if you are on a diet.
Natalia says
Can I make it without crust? Perhaps in individual ramekins? Or just Graham crust? It would be like custard only.
imma africanbites says
I haven’t tried making this without the crust. But those sounds amazing! Please do let me know how it went for you.
Rony says
Im a chef on a boat that has about 20 south African crew. I often make them treats like this to make them happy. With this recipe they all agreed that it was pretty much perfect and bang on except for the almond flavour. I doubled the recipe so that’s 1 full tablespoon of essence. If i made it again i would just use a few drops. Other than that it was a great recipe and well received.
ImmaculateBites says
Thanks for the feedback!
Miqy says
I unfortunately do not have a food processor. Is it possible to make the dough without one?
imma africanbites says
You can, but that’d be a lot of work. Please do let me know how it turns out for you.
Susi V says
I don’t have one either but it’s easy enough to rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers. I have just made this and the pastry was really good. Crisp and crumbly and not the slightest bit tough.
Sara says
Amazing amazing amazing! Ever since living in South Africa for a few months I’ve loved making this pie- and this recipe is by far my favorite. I played a little with the flavors this time and subbed the nutmeg for some cardammon. Truly scrumptious. THANKYOU!!
Conrad Kruger says
Magic
Heidi Edwards says
In the method for the crust, it says, “add eggs”, but the crust recipe calls for just 1 egg yolk.
Do I use 1 egg yolk?
Thanks, can’t wait to try it 🙂
ImmaculateBites says
Yes, I do. I add one egg yolk to the crust.
Janini says
Hi there why does it say “eggs” instead of egg in the pastry section? is there only 1 egg in the pastry or is there more?
ImmaculateBites says
Hi Janini! I add just 1 large egg yolk. Recipe corrected.
Nita says
In Afrikaans it is actually called Melk-tert and not Mel-tert (‘Melk’ means milk and ‘tert’ means tart). I usually make my gran’s Melktert recipe, but I am excited to try yours this weekend!
Will comment on how it turned out 🙂
imma africanbites says
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this, Nita! Enjoy!
Emma says
Absolute best melktert recipe ever! Thank you so much!
imma africanbites says
Thank you so much, Emma! Glad you like it.
Tee says
Hi
A colleague brought Meltert to work today following your recipe. It was delicious and i plan to make it for a party next weekend.
I am a bit confused on the quantitty of the ‘butter’ mentioned in the recipe. Can you please write it down in this comment for me?
Xoxo
T.
imma africanbites says
HI, Tee. The recipe calls for 128 g (9 tbsp) of unsalted butter (cold or frozen cut into small pieces) for the pastry crust and 29 g (2 tbsp) of butter for the filling. Hope this helps.
Jo says
I’m a South African and I’ve eaten *a lot* of milk tarts. Almost every weekend. School events. Parties. You name it. We’re no longer living in SA and my hubby requested it. I followed this recipe but left out the nutmeg as another SA lady suggested.
It was hands down the best milk tart I’ve ever eaten. Both my mom (visiting) and husband agreed! Thank you so much. I can’t wait to try more of your recipes!
imma africanbites says
Awww, thank you so much, Jo! That means a lot to me! Thank your for taking the time to share your feedback. 🙂
Orlyn says
Hi, do you remember a South African cooking book, I remember only one word “ Kettle “
I am searching all over, cannot find it, maybe your Mom remember?
Please can u help?
Thanks a lot!!
Orlyn Ellison
orlyn.ellison@gmail.com
Ann Smith says
Are you referring to the Kettle Braai cookbook? If so, I have it
Ace says
SO glad I’ve found this! Going to substitute the spices for lemon. My mom absolutely loves tarts but we never seem to have double cream in when I need it, didn’t think milk would set like this but it gives me all kinds of ideas!
ImmaculateBites says
Yes it does.