Blog

When I was a child, my mother made these wonderful milk pies, with a flaky, buttery pastry and just a hint of cinnamon to flavor the filling.

INGREDIENTS

For the Pastry:

3 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons castor sugar (icing sugar)

6oz. butter or margarine

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the Filling:

1 tablespoon flour

1 tablespoon maizena (corn starch)

2 pints milk

3 tablespoons sugar

4 eggs, separated

1 teaspoon cinnamon

METHOD

Directions for the pastry:

Sift flour, salt, baking powder into bowl, add sugar and rub in the shortening with fingers until consistency of bread crumbs.

Beat the egg and mix in milk, add vanilla.

Pour liquid gradually onto dry mix stirring with fork to blend to a soft dough. Texture of dough must be firm enough to roll out but should not be dry.

Roll to a 1/4 inch thick.

Directions for the filling:

Blend flour and mazina into a thin paste with a little of the milk.

Then put the remaining milk on to boil.

Add sugar to milk.

Separate eggs, beating yolks well and adding them to the flour and maizena mix.

Pour hot milk into mixture stirring vigorously all the time, then return to pan and cook while stirring constantly until thickened.

Remove from heat and cool a little.

Beat egg whites until stiff and fold gently into mixture.

Lightly grease and line two deep tart plates with rolled out pastry rolled to 1/4 inch thick.

Pour in the cooled filling and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 or 25 minutes.