South Africa - Koeksisters

Doing this blog I'm always on the lookout for people from different countries so I can pick their brains about which recipe to try. I found out a work friend had spent many years living in South Africa so she suggested this recipe. Thanks, Lorraine!!

Ingredients:


Syrup
1kg sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
1 ½ cups of water
juice of one lemon


Dough

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 large egg
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup of water
oil for frying

The syrup needs to be made the night before or at least several hours before so it has chance to cool properly before making the koeksisters.

 Stir the sugar into the water until it dissolves.

 Add the lemon juice, ginger and cinnamon. Let the syrup boil and then remove from the heat. When it has cooled put it in the fridge overnight (or for a few hours).

Now for the dough. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.

 Rub in the butter until it looks like this.

 Mix together the egg and water.

Stir into the flour mix until it forms a dough. Let the dough rest for 2-3 hours.

Roll the dough out to about 1/2 cm thickness. Cut into 6cm x 2cm rectangles.

Now for the fun part. Cut each rectangle into three pieces almost to the top so you can plait them. We didn't know if we were doing it correctly but we enjoyed making these little plaits.

 The syrup had the most amazing smell and was so beautiful in colour after being in the fridge overnight.

 Heat up a pan of oil and fry the plaits until they're golden brown.

Drain to remove excess oil then immediately dip in the cold syrup.

These were delicious! They had a kind of melt in the mouth texture, both crispy and soft. The flavour was fantastic, the ginger gave it a spicy heat which I loved. Erin texted Leigh to hurry up and come downstairs because Mum's making sweet fried food. They were probably worried I'd eat them all before they got chance to try them. The best thing about this recipe is that dunking the koeksisters in the syrup cools them down so you can eat them straight away even though they've been in hot oil. We all loved them. ^_^