Foreign baking is one of our favourite home education activities. It gives us an insight into the country simply by the ingredients used and type of food eaten there. I wonder what other countries think of the UK?! Can’t beat a Victoria sponge cake!
We also follow up our baking with a fact file about the country, finding answers to things like; location, flag, population, landmarks, festivals, currency, GDP etc. If you’re interested in this please write a comment/get in touch and I’ll give you some details.
Eve chose South Africa this time. On a Google search koeksisters came up near the top for traditional bakes of South Africa. It was a winner for us as not only could we buy all of the ingredients from Tesco but it looked really interesting to make.
We were sold. And they didn’t turn out too bad if I do say so myself!
Although the recipe says cake flour, don’t worry it’s easy to create a substitute if you can’t find any. You will need plain flour and cornstarch. For every cup of plain flour, remove 2 tablespoons and replace with the equivalent cornstarch. Simple!
Here’s the recipe if you’d like to give them a try. They’re actually pretty simple to make. Let us know in the comments section if you make them and how they turn out. Good luck!
Ingredients
- 3 cups sugar
- 2 cups water
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 tsp vanilla essence
- Small piece fresh ginger sliced
- Juice from a lemon
- 2 cups cake flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 50 g butter
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup milk
- Oil for frying
Instructions
- Start by making the syrup as it needs to cool. Add the sugar, water, cinnamon, vanilla essence, ginger and lemon juice to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir until the sugar has fully melted.
- Pour the syrup into a heatproof bowl and place it in the fridge to cool.
- Add the flour, baking powder, salt and butter and incorporate together with your fingertips.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and milk then add this to the flour mixture.
- Mix lightly until it forms a dough.
- Tip dough out onto a clean working service and knead for 10mins. Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Remove from the fridge and roll out the dough into a rectangle shape. Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut the dough into smaller rectangles, approximately 6 inches by 1 inch. Then cut each rectangle into 3 strips but still connected at the top.
- Plait each rectangle together and pinch tightly on each end to ensure they keep their shape while frying.
- Bring your oil to a temperature of 180 degrees celsius. You can drop a small piece of the dough in the oil to check the temperature - it should start bubbling and floating to the top within 5 seconds.
- Place the bowl of syrup onto of an ice bath to ensure it says cold.
- Fry the koeksisters keeping an eye out as they fry very quickly.
- When ready, remove the koeksisters from the oil and immediately add them to the syrup, ensuring they're fully coated. Allow them to soak in the syrup for between 2-3mins.
- Place on a cooling rack to cool.
There you have it - a traditional South African sweet treat.
Enjoy!
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