South African Dessert
KOEKSISTERS
INGREDIENTS – SYRUP
1⅔ cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1¼ teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon ginger
1 tablespoon lemon juice
4⅓ cups sugar
INGREDIENTS – DOUGH
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
3 tablespoons butter, softened
½ cup milk
6 cups vegetable oil
Makes 18 braided doughnuts. Takes 20 minutes plus 4 hours plus 1 hour 45 minutes.
PREPARATION – SYRUP
Add all syrup ingredients to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir enough to keep sugar from burning on the bottom. Reduce heat to warm and simmer for 10 minutes or until syrupy. Stir enough to keep sugar from burning on the bottom. Remove cinnamon stick. Cool in refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight.
PREPARATION – DOUGH
Add baking powder, flour, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Beat egg in cup. Add egg, butter, and milk to bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Let dough sit for 1 hour.
Roll out dough to ¼” thickness. Cut dough into strips that are 3″ long and 1½” wide. Cut each strips into 3 ribbons along its length almost all the way to the other end. Leave ribbons connected at one end. Braid the mostly-separated ribbons. Pinch the loose end of the ribbons together. These are your koeksisters.
Add oil to deep pan. The oil should be 1½” high. Turn heat to high. Add little bit of dough. Oil is hot enough when a bit of dough rises to the top. Carefully add koeksisters to pan. (Be careful of splattering oil.) Do not let koeksisters touch. You might have to cook in batches. Deep for 2 minutes or until bottom turns golden brown. Turn over koeksisters and deep fry for 2 more minutes or until new bottom is golden brown. Remove koeksisters and drain immediately on plates covered with paper towels.
While koeksisters drain, remove the pot of refrigerated syrup. Divide this syrup into 2 bowls. (This will prevent all of the syrup from heating up when dipped into by the hot koeksisters.) Immediately after draining the koeksisters, dip the koeksisters into a bowl of syrup. Dip the koeksisters again, this time in the 2nd bowl of syrup. The koeksisters should be slightly crispy on the outside.
TIDBITS
1) These braided doughnuts are crunchy on the outside, but deliciously soft on the inside.
2) However, if you leave koeksisters or any other dough out long enough, it will get hard, real hard.
3) Indeed, long doughnuts such as koeksisters or long Johns are favored by the US Army as these doughnuts’ cylindrical shape enable them to fit into all sorts of artillery pieces.
4) A fourteen-day-old koeksister will eliminate an enemy infantryman.*
5) A month-old long doughnut will knock down a brick building.*
6) A six-month old Long-John will tear a sizable hole into any tank found on the modern battlefield. You don’t want to contemplate what the rock hard doughnut fragments will do to the crew inside.*
7) A year-old koeksister will rip apart even the most hardened concrete bunker.*
8) * = As recorded in the US Army Top Secret* Film #107-223-4X. “Analysis of Doughnut Projectile Effectiveness in the Second Gulf War.”
9) Top Secret films really shouldn’t put on YouTubeTM.
10) A good way to soften a rock-hard doughnut is to place a damp paper towel over it and microwave for one minute.
11) America’s enemies know this. They are busy inventing SDDIs (Strategic Doughnut Defense Systems) to intercept and eliminate our lethal doughnuts.
12) SDDI consists of two different artillery pieces. The first piece fires open microwaves into the path of a flying doughnut. Once near the doughnut, the trajectories of the microwaves are controlled by controllers on the ground.
13) The second artillery piece fires gigantic rolls of damp paper towels. Air friction tears one paper towel after another from the paper roll. The sky becomes a blizzard of paper towels. By sheer force of numbers, every doughnut captured in the flying microwaves will be covered by damp paper towels. Once this happens, ground technicians will microwave the once hard doughnut to harmless softness.
14) There is even talk that the American Doughnut Corps has satellites that can take out incoming nuclear missiles. As of press time, there has been no official confirmation.
Chef Paul
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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