Koeksisters

Method

1. 01

   Make the syrup the day before

   Boil sugar, water, spices, lemon peel and juice, cream of tartar and salt hard for ten minutes. Cool completely and refrigerate overnight. The syrup has to be ice cold — that is not advice, it is the condition.

2. 02

   Make the dough

   Mix flour, baking powder, mixed spice and salt. Rub in the frozen butter with your fingertips to coarse crumbs. Add milk and buttermilk and knead to a smooth dough.

3. 03

   Rest it

   Cover and rest for 30 minutes. The dough relaxes and can then be plaited without springing back.

4. 04

   Cut and plait

   Roll out about five millimetres thick and cut into rectangles of 14 by 6 cm. Cut each lengthways into three strips, leaving one end joined. Plait and pinch the open end firmly.

5. 05

   Prepare the syrup

   Split the cold syrup into two batches. One goes into the freezer just before frying, the other stays in the fridge — swap as soon as the first warms up.

6. 06

   Fry

   Heat the oil to 180 °C. Fry only four or five plaits at a time, about two minutes, turning once, until golden brown.

7. 07

   Straight into the syrup

   Out of the oil and into the ice-cold syrup, submerged for a minute. The shock draws the syrup inside while the crust stays crisp. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain on a rack.

Where it comes from

Where the word comes from

Afrikaans, from Dutch · Literally „probably from *koek* (cake) and *sissen* (to hiss)“ The hiss in hot fat is the likeliest explanation; it is not certain either.

There are two pastries with almost the same name, and confusing them is the commonest mistake on the subject. The Afrikaans koeksister is a plaited yeast or baking-powder dough, deep-fried and dropped straight into ice-cold syrup; it is glassy, hard outside and drips. The Cape Malay koesister is round, spiced with cardamom, cinnamon and anise, rolled in coconut after its syrup bath, and soft.

Both come from the same period and the same place — the Cape of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — but from different households. The koesister belongs to Sunday morning in the Bo-Kaap, the koeksister to the Afrikaans coffee table.

For the koeksister the temperature difference is not a detail but the technique. The syrup has to come out of the fridge, the pastry straight out of the fat. If the syrup soaks in slowly the dough goes soggy; properly cold, a thin sugar crust forms outside and the inside stays dry. That contrast is the whole point.

Neither belongs at the fire. They are here because they belong to a South African afternoon — after the braai, with the coffee.

Sources for this section

• Wikipedia — Koeksister
• Daily Maverick — The complex history of Cape Muslim cuisine

Watch this

Linked, not embedded — opening this page contacts no outside server. The time marks jump straight to the moment.

• 25:17

  English

  Salwaa Smith | Cape Malay Cooking & Other Delights

  How To Make Koesisters Part 1

  From a cook who comes out of this kitchen. For the difference between koeksister and koesister it is the best source on video.

  • 2:10„Making the dough“ — The dough of the Cape Malay koesister — spiced, yeasted, and therefore a different pastry from the Afrikaans koeksister.
  • 10:30„Making the balls“ — Rolled round rather than plaited. That is the most visible difference between the two pastries.
  • 14:08„Frying“ — Fat temperature and colour — where homemade ones usually go wrong.

  Differs from us
  Our recipe is the Afrikaans koeksister: plaited, unspiced, in cold syrup. The video shows the other one — and makes clear that two different things share almost one name.

  Last checked 2026-09-05