Koeksisters
Plaits of fried dough soaked in ice-cold syrup, very crunchy and sweet. The Cape Malay version is spicier and has coconut.
Ingredients
- Syrup (made the day before): 500 g sugar, 250 ml water, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 piece of ginger and 1 cinnamon stick
- 300 g flour
- 1 tablespoon of baking powder
- 30 g butter
- 1 egg
- 150 ml milk
- Oil for frying
How to make it at home
- Boil the water with the sugar, lemon and spices for 5 minutes and put the syrup in the freezer until ice-cold.
- Mix the flour with the baking powder and butter, add the egg and milk and knead into a soft dough. Leave to rest for 30 minutes.
- Roll it out to half a centimetre, cut 8 × 3 cm rectangles, make two cuts lengthways in each and plait them.
- Fry them in oil at 180 °C until golden.
- Transfer them straight from the oil to the ice-cold syrup, leave for 30 seconds and drain.
The trick: Hot into ice-cold syrup: that’s what makes them crunchy.