Cuisine:Traditional South African

Category:Baking and Sweet Recipes

Yields:± 36 (85 g)

The sweet taste of these twisted plaits of golden dough soaked in thick syrup until translucent makes them a great favourite in South Africa. The secret of their success, is in preparing the syrup a day ahead and chilling it before dipping the koeksisters.

Syrup

• 1 kg sugar
• 500 ml water
• 3 cm long piece of fresh ginger (peeled and bruised)
• 2-3 sticks of cinnamon
• 1 ml (pinch) cream of tartar

Dough

• 240 g flour
• 20 ml baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 30 ml butter
• 125 ml buttermilk

Deep Fry

• vegetable oil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Syrup

Bring water to boil, in a saucepan, add sugar and stir until dissolved (wash down sugar crystals adhering to sides of saucepan). Turn the heat down, add cream of tarter, ginger and cinnamon and simmer for 5-8 minutes. Do not stir. Cool the syrup to room temperature. Divide it into 2 saucepans and place in the refrigerator to chill overnight.

Dough

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt, rub in butter, add buttermilk. Mix into a soft dough and knead thoroughly. (It helps if you oil your hands lightly when starting to knead the dough.) Cover the dough with a damp cloth and leave dough to rest for 15 minutes. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 5 mm and cut into strips 5 mm wide and 70 mm long or use a koeksister cutter if you have one. Press the ends of two or three strips together and twist or plait, press the ends together again. Keep the dough you are not working with covered with a damp cloth.

Deep Fry

Deep fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove with a slotted spoon and dip the pieces immediately in the ice cold syrup. Remove and place the koeksisters on a wire rack so that the excess syrup can drain.

This recipe will yield ± 3 doz (85 g) dainty sized koeksisters - you can make them bigger for a more substantial treat.

Store the koeksisters in a sealed container in the refrigerator. They freeze well and can be served straight from the freezer.

The secret of the crisp syrupy outside of koeksisters is that they are taken straight from hot oil and dipped into ice-cold syrup. This seals the syrup outside and leaves the inside dryish in contrast, so use only small quantities of syrup at a time and leave remainder in the refrigerator. Top up with cold syrup when necessary.