Custard Cookies or Vlakoekies

Custard Cookies or Vlakoekies

Before we were married, my husband bought me a cookie-making attachment for the Kenwood Mixer to which I had treated myself when I gave up smoking. Now I was an old-fashioned kind of smoking girl, and giving up was certainly not easy. Thirteen years later, we are still married, I am still not smoking, but I am greatly afraid to say that it was only today that the cookie-press was finally used, and that was mostly because I wanted to try out the recipes from South Africa Day. Although I could have just put them up, the only recipes I do put up on the blog, generally speaking, are those I have tried-and-tested myself. 

Now, my husband is Afrikaans-speaking, while I am an English-speaking South African, and while we do have a lot more in common from a culinary tradition than would at first appear, given that we are both descended from a line of Scottish ancestors who came out in the 1800s, though the lines further back are more different (via the Dutch East India company and the San on his side and many Viking Norwegians on the other), the interesting thing is that our cooking traditions are more akin than our baking ones - which meant that I had to learn a whole bunch of new baking recipes; what fun. 

Now vlakoekies or custard cookies are a great favourite of his, and while I have bought for him on occasion, today was the first day I made them. The recipe was received from Elsa, who was a stalwart in the Dhahran Women's Group (DWG) in Saudi Arabia and had happily volunteered to undertake the administrative work related to new membership at the DWG. She was a wonderful organiser, and very organised, and it was she who helped drive the concept of South Africa Day, for which I am most grateful. In fact, it was a group in large part led by her who approached me with the fact that, although I was now President of the DWG for a second year, that a South African cultural day had not yet featured, and they happily volunteered to undertake the baking involved. When I was hesitant to accept their exceedingly generous offer, it was she who phoned me and said that I was expected to lead, so I must now lead the group - how humbling to have your own compatriots be so incredibly willing to work. 

And now, it is largely thanks to Elsa that my husband now finally has his vlakoekies, since I mislaid the first set of recipes she sent me, and had to ask her for them again. 

That said, hers are very much melt-in-your-mouth, and he was expecting more the Kook en Geneit cookies, which are less crumbly and tender, but more robust in terms of handling buttercream frosting or butter icing inbetween them to make a cookie sandwich. Hence, I looked up that recipe too and have appended it at the end. Both are delicious. 

Elsa's Custard Cookies or Vlakoekies

340 g ( 375 ml ) butter or margarine

100 g (200ml) icing sugar

5 ml vanilla

325 g (625 ml) flour 

175 g ( 350 ml) custard powder 

20 ml baking powder 

Pinch of salt (1 ml) 

Pre-heat oven to 176°C / 350°F / gas mark 4 

Cream the sugar and butter together: 

Room temperature butter and icing sugar creamed together in the mixer

Add the vanilla and mix. Sift the dry ingredients together and add to butter mixture. Knead to form a dough. Roll out and use a cookie cutter to cut cookies. 

Conall with the Kenwood cookie press attachment 

Bake at 350 F for 10 - 12 minutes. It makes 120 cookies. You can pick up two cookies and create a sandwich, filling the innards with apricot jam and icing sugar, or with buttercream frosting or butter icing.

Conall in charge of the cookies in the oven

 Kook en Geneit Custard Cookie Recipe

170 grams butter (¾ cup)

60 grams icing / confectioner's / powdered sugar (½ cup) 

1 egg 

5ml vanilla essence (1 teaspoon) 

125 grams flour (1 cup) 

64 grams corn starch (½ cup) 

75 grams custard powder (½ cup) 

2.5 ml baking powder (½ teaspoon) 

2.5 ml teaspoon salt (½ teaspoon) 

Preheat oven to 200°C / 400 °F / gas mark 6 

Cream together butter and sugar until it is like a mousse. Be sure to ensure the sugar is evenly distributed throughout, and do use a spatula to scrape any butter off the walls of your mixer so as make sure there is no hard butter bits left unmixed. It is always best to use room temperature butter. 

Add the eggs and vanilla essence, beating well. 

In a separate container, you will have mixed together all dry ingredients, ensuring even distrubtion thereof. Add these to the above mixture until a stiff dough is formed. 

You can either then press the mixture through a press or, place onto a baking sheet with teaspoons. 

Faran in charge of the cookie press making vlakoekies or custard biscuits 

Bake for between 7 and 10 minutes, or, lower the temperature and bake over a longer period of time.