South African · Dessert

Koeksisters

Advanced
45 min
roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Vegetarian

rich · bright · warm-spiced · aromatic Leads with richness that coats and comforts, acid holding everything up to the light, opening aromatic and staying there.

Ingredients

1 kg white sugar
500 ml water
5 ml cream of tartar
1 stick cinnamon
2 wide strips lemon peel
10 ml lemon juice
5 ml ground ginger
500 g cake flour
20 g baking powder
5 g salt
60 g cold butter, cubed
1 large egg
250 ml full cream milk
1.5 litres sunflower oil, for frying

The skills inside

Reducing a sauce Resting dough: the pause that does the work Rubbing fat into flour

Allergen screen

Found: gluten · dairy · egg

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

Boil the sugar, water, cream of tartar, cinnamon, lemon peel, lemon juice and ginger for 5 to 8 minutes to a thin syrup that coats a spoon but still runs off freely, then cool and chill it overnight until it is ice cold; split it between two bowls and put one in the freezer. 8 min
Rub the cold butter into the flour, baking powder and salt to fine crumbs, beat the egg into the milk and bring it together to a soft dough, knead just 2 minutes until smooth, then rest it covered in the fridge for an hour. 2 min
Roll to 6 to 8 mm, cut strips 7 cm by 4 cm, slit each into three legs leaving the top joined, and plait tightly, pinching the tail hard so it cannot unravel in the oil.
Fry a few at a time at 175C (350F), turning, until deep golden right through the plait, 3 to 4 minutes; cooler oil soaks them and hotter oil browns the outside over raw dough at the crossings. 4 min
Lift each one straight from the oil, shake off the drips and plunge it immediately into the ice cold syrup, holding it under for 30 seconds before lifting onto a rack; swap to the frozen bowl the moment the first loses its chill.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes

The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.

Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.

Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes

It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.

Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.

At the Table

The Pour: Moscato d’Asti
Also Right: Late-harvest Riesling
From the Taps: Witbier
Zero-Proof: Sparkling elderflower

Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.

Family notes

Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.

Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Koeksisters Technique: Reducing a sauceThe skill inside this recipe The cuisine, deeper Technique films from the South African kitchen