Today we celebrate one of South Africa’s most iconic desserts, the milk tart or better known as melktert to many.

National Milk Tart Day is the country’s very own excuse to bake a delicious milk tart or try out some of its unique variations such as milk tart macaroons, milk tart flavoured milkshakes and even milk tart shooters. South Africans never fail to please!

Eggs, flour, sugar and milk will get you the sweet centre. Smack all of this with a pastry, biscuit or baked crust and you’re good to go.

You could even go crustless if you want. You could even bake it if you like.

Melktert, as it was originally known, was brought to the country by the Dutch settlers in the Cape in the 1600s and is said to have been adapted from a recipe for Mattentaart which was listed in Thomas van der Noot’s book, Een Notabel Boexcken van Cokeryen (A Notable Book of Cookery), published in 1514.

Given its long history, it is no surprise that there are countless recipes and variations of the Milk Tart and there is even a whole recipe book dedicated to this delicious dessert, (The South African Milk Tart Collection by Callie Maritz & Mari-Louis Guy), that was published in 2017.

In honour of the day, we asked two chefs from Capsicum Culinary Studio to give us their favourite Milk Tart recipes. Find them here.