koeksisters!!!!

It snowed again this morning! Perfect baking weather. We decided to try and make a South African recipe called koeksisters.

Syrup
2 cups of water
3 cups of sugar
cinnamon sticks

just look at the lovely rough cinnamon sticks that I found!

Champ kept an eye on the syrup which has to boil for 5 - 10 minutes. I also added a splash of gingerbread syrup :o) which is obviously yummy but optional

take out cinnamon sticks and leave to cool

Dough
3 1/2 cups of strong white bread flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg beaten
60ml (4tbsp)butter
120ml milk
60ml luke warm water
1 packet of fast action yeast

* put the flour, salt, yeast, sugar into a bowl
* heat milk and butter in a pan until the butter has melted - let it cool until luke warm
* add milk, butter, egg and water.
* mix together and turn out onto counter and knead for about 10 minutes until silky.
* oil the bowl and put the dough in it and cover bowl with clingfilm and leave to rise in warm place for about 45 minutes until doubled in size.

There aren't any pictures of Boo in this post because she has just discovered Harry Potter, and spent most of the day reading :o)
Roll out dough until about 6mm thick and cut into strips
and plat
cut plats into about 3 inch pieces and place on flour dusted tray, clover with damp tea towel and leave to rise for 10-15 minutes.
Heat oil until hot. Use spare pieces of dough to test.

turn half way to brown both sides
take out of the oil and place on a towel to drain the oil. Dip completely in the cooled syrup. The syrup has to be really cold and the koeksisters hot so that they draw in the syrup.
The recipe makes 2 batches like this.
Then sprinkle with icing (powdered) sugar - optional but looks pretty and mirrors the weather outside :o)
and eat!