The perfect Heritage Day menu

Capsicum Culinary Studio’s Chef Hayley Sutherland loves all things sweet. She talks about her perfect Heritage Day menu, explains why vetkoek should make a comeback and shares recipes for delicious milk tart macarons and a plain vetkoek.

What would be your perfect Heritage Day meal, why and who would you share it with?

A traditional braai with chops and wors. There would be various salad options – potato salad, coleslaw, mixed salad and braai broodjies. Not forgetting dessert which would definitely be a peppermint fridge tart.

Milk Tart Macarons

Milk tart filling:

250ml milk

60g egg yolks

63g sugar

25g cornflour

2 cinnamon sticks

Method:

1. Heat the milk and cinnamon until boiling point
2. Mix the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour until smooth
3. Temper the hot milk onto the yolk mixture
4. Return to the heat and allow the mixture to boil, continuously stirring
5. Remove from the heat, strain (remove cinnamon sticks)
6. Place in a bowl, with plastic wrap on the surface and allow to cool in the fridge

Macarons:

135g caster sugar

80g ground almonds

60g egg white

Method:

1. Place the caster sugar and egg white in a bowl over a double boiler and cook it to liquid form (70°C).
2. Remove from the heat and beat on high speed until medium peak.
3. On a low speed beat in the ground almonds, colour until combined
4. Pipe onto the silpat and bake for 7-10 minutes (depending how large they have been piped)
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before taking them off the silpat or they with split in half.
6. Fill and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week

NOTE: Do not flavour the macaron mixture, it will flop

To assemble: Spoon some of the cold milk tart filling onto a macaron and top with another.

Vetkoek

(Yields 4)

Ingredients

125ml cake flour

2.5ml baking powder

pinch   salt

¼ egg

62.5ml milk

Oil for frying

Method

1. Sift dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.
2. Whisk egg and add with milk, to dry ingredients. Mix to a soft dough.
3. Heat enough oil to cover base of frying pan.
4. Pour spoons full of batter into the hot oil and fry to a golden brown on both sides.
5. Drain on paper towels.