A traditional South African treat, koeksisters are wickedly sweet and make for a delicious tea time treat. So roll up your sleeves, follow this easy recipe and get ready to work that dough!
Koeksisters
Ingredients
Scale
Ingredients – dough:
- 2 cups cake flour
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 4 tbsp butter/margarine
- ½ cup of water
- oil for frying
Ingredients – syrup:
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 ½ cinnamon sticks
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 ½ cups of water
- juice of one lemon
Instructions
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.
- Rub in the butter and mix until pliable.
- Mix this with the egg and water (adding the water a little at a time).
- Work the dough well. If the dough appears to be lumpy and sticky, continue to work the dough until it will ball up.
- Let the dough rest at room temperature for about three hours (under an inverted mixing bowl).
Method – syrup:
- Prepare the syrup a day before (it needs to be very cold).
- Dissolve sugar in the water.
- Add the spices and lemon juice to this and boil together. Leave the syrup cool in the fridge overnight.
To prepare the koeksisters:
- Roll out the dough (thickness 5mm).
- Cut the dough into strips of 6cm long, 2cm wide.
- Cut each of these strips into three strips (not all the way through, leave the strips connected at the top).
- Plat each strip, pinch together at the end of the strip.
- Deep fry until golden brown.
- Remove and drain quickly – dip the hot koeksisters in the cold syrup (that was stored in the fridge up to now).
- The secret is to keep the syrup cold and the koeksisters hot, this way it will draw just the right amount of syrup.
- You can keep the syrup cold by keeping the syrup bowl in another container filled with iced water.
