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Outydse Soetkoekie
Anina December 12, 2012 baking 34 Comments
This Outydse Soetkoekie recipe is the only sugar cookie recipe you will ever need.I have fallen in love with cookie dough. Seriously, that’s what happened here. Your hands are in charge of this magic mixture of ingredients, and with a little rolling and kneading – the perfect cookie dough is formed. Call me a hippie if you want – I don’t care – as a foodie – I LOVE working with cookie dough and getting my hands dirty!
The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe
I never thought this recipe would yield such an amazing buttery, crumbly and flaky cookie! When hubby asked for a batch of his gran’s soetkoekies, I couldn’t wait to try it out. This “Outydse Soetkoekie” recipe has been a family recipe and been passed down many generations. Her recipe is deliciously rich and sweet. However, there are varieties of the original soetkoekie with added warming spices., like ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Just add 5ml allspice for that nostalgic flavour.
For my foreign readers, this recipe is the epicenter of real South African bakes. Every South African would have had soetkoekies before or would have baked it themselves, sometime in their lifespan. This is seriously delicious stuff.
Sugary and Buttery Goodness
You might feel that there isn’t much about this recipe other than its origin that makes it special. It is a plain sweet and buttery cookie recipe, that’s probably been duplicated and tweaked over the years and used all over the world as a sweet biscuit – that serves as a base recipe for thousands of variations of cookies.
Easy Does It
This cookie recipe knocked my socks off. Just a simple combination of butter and sugar with, egg, flour and baking soda and cream of tartar. After the wet and dry ingredients combine, my first thought was that this dough will never roll, it is crumbly and dry – seems like it needed a second dose of butter. However, I took the recipe seriously and husband’s gran made it very clear to not add more wet ingredients. Your hands do all the work!
Beautiful Cookie Dough
It only took a few minutes before the perfect cookie dough was produced. Beautiful soft, flexible dough, that rolled out perfectly, baked perfectly and the result was a perfectly sweet and flaky, crispy and buttery outydse soetkoekie that melts in your mouth.
Try some more of my favourite cookie recipes:
Coffee Cookies
Gingersnap Cookies
Lemon Creams
Print Recipe
An outydse Soetkoekie recipe made with buttery cookie dough passed down from three generations.
Votes: 49 Rate this recipe!
Rating: 3.63
You:
| Prep Time | 15 min |
| Cook Time | 15 min |
| Servings | dozen |
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 250 gr butter softnened
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 tablespoon creme of tartar
- 2 large eggs
- 5 ml ground allspice optional
Ingredients
|
Votes: 49 Rate this recipe! |
Instructions
First off in a large mixing bowl, sift all the dry ingredients together. You can add the allspice spice mixture here if you like a spicy cookie.
Add pieces of the butter to the dry ingredients and work through with your hands and fingers until you are left with what looks like rough breadcrumbs.
Whisk the eggs and vanilla, add them to the dry ingredients and work them through the dough as well – with your hands.
At this stage I was thinking that something went wrong. The dough seemed very dry and it’s difficult to get the ingredients to incorporate more. I was tempted to add a little more butter or even a drop or two of water. DON’T ADD ANYTHING.
Cover the dough with cling film and refrigerate for 15 - 20 minutes. Only break off a small piece of dough – big enough to fit in your hands – like the size of a cricket ball when you start to roll.
Start by squeezing and rolling it in your hands, after a while the dough will incorporate all the ingredients and the beautiful soft delicate dough would have formed.
Dust your surface with flour and roll out to about ½ a centimeter think.
Cut with dusted cookie cutters, set on a greased pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 10 - 15 minutes. It is difficult to say exactly how long they must bake as it depends on the size of your cookie, but after 10 minutes they should start to get a little color on the edges and bottom.
You can add more time if you wish for a light brown cookie. However, I like my cookie paler – it just seems that the dough still has a very delicate texture in the middle.
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About The Author
anina
Food blogger, Recipe Developer, Food Stylist and Photographer currently living the slow life in Cape Town, South Africa. I love to share easy and delicious recipes the whole family would enjoy.
