Name: Koesisters (home recipe)
Prep time: 40 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: Makes about 20
Cuisine: South Africa
Ingredients: 500g cake flour; 10g instant yeast; 60g white sugar; 1 tsp salt; 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground aniseed, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp ground cardamom; 1 tsp dried naartjie or tangerine peel, ground; 60g butter, melted; 300ml lukewarm milk; Sunflower oil for deep-frying, about 1L; For the syrup: 400g sugar, 350ml water, 1 cinnamon stick, 3 cardamom pods, 1 strip orange peel; 200g desiccated coconut

History

The koesister is a Cape Malay pastry with a cake-like crumb, spiced with cinnamon, aniseed, ginger, cardamom and dried tangerine skin powder, and the technique came to the Cape with people enslaved and exiled from the Indonesian archipelago from the 1650s. It is fried, cooled, cooked briefly in syrup and finished in coconut. The Afrikaner koeksister is a different pastry entirely: a crisp plaited doughnut drowned in cold syrup, with no spice and no coconut. In Bo-Kaap the koesister is a Sunday-morning routine, bought warm by the bag and eaten with milky tea.

Common allergens: Gluten, Milk

Make it at home

Yield Makes about 20Hands-on 40 minTotal 2 hr 30 minDifficulty Intermediate

Ingredients

500g cake flour
10g instant yeast
60g white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground aniseed, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp dried naartjie or tangerine peel, ground
60g butter, melted
300ml lukewarm milk
Sunflower oil for deep-frying, about 1L
For the syrup: 400g sugar, 350ml water, 1 cinnamon stick, 3 cardamom pods, 1 strip orange peel
200g desiccated coconut

Method

Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, salt and all the ground spices together. Stir in the melted butter and the milk and work to a soft, slightly sticky dough.
Knead for 8 minutes, then cover and prove in a warm place for 1 hour until doubled.
Knock back and shape into 20 balls, about 45g each. Set them apart on a floured tray, cover and prove 30 minutes.
Bring the syrup ingredients to the boil, then hold at a bare simmer.
Heat the oil to 165C and fry the balls in batches of four for about 6 minutes, turning, until deep brown and cooked through. Drain and cool for 10 minutes.
Drop the cooled koesisters into the simmering syrup for 1 minute, lift out, drain briefly and roll in coconut while still tacky.

Tip from the editors. Fry at 165C rather than hotter: a spiced dough ball this size browns long before the middle is cooked if the oil runs too hot.