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These Outydse Soetkoekies are the pinnacle of South African Cookie recipes. It’s the only sugar cookie recipe you will ever want to make. No funny ingredients, just a simple, straightforward, amazingly deliciously crunchy biscuit that turns out perfect every single time!
Family Recipes
My late gran spent a lot of her time in the kitchen. She was old school, she baked bread, milktart and spent a tremendous amount of time in the kitchen baking cookies for her grandchildren who would visit during the summer holidays. Her repertoire of cookies included “jamtertjies”, “hertzoggies”, ginger cookies and not to be forgotten the good old “Soetkoekie”. I can’t tell you exactly how many days these lasted, but it wasn’t long before you would find yourself reaching for the last cookie. I regret not spending more time in the kitchen with her.
Why this recipe?
Once you start rummaging through your kitchen cupboard you will find that you have most of the ingredients required to bake these cookies. There are no fancy ingredients. It’s a simple recipe to follow and if your family is anything like me, sticking to the quantities will yield more than 4 dozen cookies. It sounds like a lot, I know, but making the entire batch at once, and then freezing half of it, will allow you to re-make these biscuits again without having to combine all the ingredients from scratch. We adore easy biscuit recipes!
Storing the cookies or freezing the dough
Taste of Home has some great tips on how to store either the baked cookies or the dough.
Cutout cookies can be a little finicky. One option is to freeze the dough; this works for up to 6 months. You can tightly wrap or cover the dough and place it into the freezer. Another option is to freeze the baked but undecorated cookies for 6 months. Do this by placing them in a single layer on a baking sheet and freezing them until completely frozen. Then, carefully stack them in a hard-sided container until you’re ready to decorate. Always store your cookies in an airtight container such as these, this will ensure they stay crunchy.
The gift of homemade cookies
If you choose to freeze some of the already cut out cookie dough as per instruction above, then whipping these up as a birthday gift is quick and easy to do. Simply thaw, and bake the night before. Present them in a beautiful glass jar with a personalised sticker or tag. This homemade gift will not go unnoticed. Why not try our Crunchie recipe?
Outydse Soetkoekies
This Outydse Soetkoekies dough is made from standard ingredients: eggs, sugar, flour, butter, baking powder, salt & lukewarm water. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar adding the eggs in one at a time while steadily beating. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. If the dough is too stiff, you may add a tablespoon of lukewarm water at a time until you reach the desired consistency. The dough should be more dry than wet, not sticky. If you have added too much water you may add a little flour again.
Cover the dough with cling film and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.
Take the dough out of the fridge and allow to soften slightly at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. We really like this baking mat from Mighty Ape. If you are in South Africa then this re-usable silicone mat is super.
On a lightly floured surface roll the dough out to 4 mm thickness. I find that placing the dough between two sheets of baking paper does make it easier to roll out.
Press out with cookie cutter of your choice. I still love the traditional round shape most.
Bake in the oven at 180 degrees Celcius for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, let cool a little and then place onto a cooling rack to cool completely before placing it in an airtight container.
Until next time!
Outydse Soetkoekies
Ingredients
- 10 cups Flour
- 500 g Butter
- 10 tsp Baking Powder
- 4 cups Sugar
- 6 Eggs
- ½ Cup Lukewarm Water Use as required
- Pinch Salt
Instructions
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
- In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar adding the eggs in one at a time while steadily beating.
- Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. If the dough is too stiff, you may add a tablespoon of lukewarm water at a time until you reach the desired consistency. The dough should be more dry than wet, not sticky. If you have added too much water you may add a little flour again.
- Cover the dough with cling film and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and allow to soften slightly at room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 180° Celcius and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- On a lightly floured surface roll the dough out to 4 mm thickness. I find that placing the dough between two sheets of baking paper does make it easier to roll out.
- Press out with cookie cutter of your choice.
- Bake in the oven at 180° Celcius for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, let cool a little and then place onto cooling rack to cool completely before placing it in an airtight container.
Notes
Looks delicious
Hi Valerie,
Thanks for popping by. Let us know if you have tried it! We would love to hear from you. MM*
Great recipe, used a cookie press, made about 8 dozen using your quantities, reduced baking time to 9 minutes, came out just like my mom and gran use to make. Can get the cookie press on Trade Me for next to nothing. Will do them again.
Hello there! I want to ask, are the biscuits rather hard and crispy or soft and chewy? I’ve been looking for hard biscuits for a while, no luck yet…
Hi there, they are soft and chewy, BUT if you roll them out thinner they will go mote crispy
Thanks for this wonderful recipe! Tastes very similar to Marie biscuits.
Hi Megan. I loved reading this and look forward to trying your recipe. I used your tip with rolling pastry between 2 sheets of wax paper today for my short crust patty base and it worked so well – genius!!! Thanks so much!
Hi Sarah,
Thank you for checking in. I would love to have your feedback once you have tried it. The biscuits don’t last long in our home 🙂 I’m glad that you found our tip useful. I’m totally obsessed with finding kitchen hacks to make things easier. Chat soon. MM*
The best biscuits on earth. They taste wonderful.
Hey Quan!
We’re so glad you like these biscuits 🙂 Love Mom
These have become a family favorite. My sisters in the UK have been giving them ago too 🙂 Really easy recipe and delicious.
Just love this biscuits!!!!! WoW WoW Fantastic!!!!!
We adore them too! Thanks for popping in to visit our website.
So pleased to hear 🙂
Afternoon I added a bit of Cardomon spice and aniseed in this recipe it must rest for 30 minutes when done baking I will reply so excited Kathleen
Oh yummy! What a great addition of spices. Taking these biscuits next level
Delicious delicious
So glad I found your page!
Please tell me if the butter and eggs should be room temp, and also is the sugar your using granulated or just normal sugar?
Thanks!
Hi there! We are so happy that you have found us too. The butter and eggs are better when they are room temperature, yes. If for some reason you forgot to take out the butter then simply weigh out the correct amount and then cut this into small blocks. This will help the butter get to room temp faster. For the eggs, you can drop them into tap water for 5 minutes to bring them to room temperature.
Your final question regarding the sugar, it’s normal sugar. I’m sure you are referring to castor sugar as granulated sugar is the same as normal sugar.
Feel free to let me know if you have any further questions.
Enjoy
M
I have just finished kneading my Soetkoekie dough. This is on old family recipe that requires the butter to be rubbed into the flour and sugar (hard job with 3lbs of flour) and left to stand overnight. The recipe is very similar but our recipe has cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. It is the go to Christmas favourite.
Hi Wayne. You get some nifty tools to help with rubbing the butter into the flour, significantly reducing the time spent doing this. You also don’t have to chill overnight, but at least 30-40 minutes prior to rolling it out. Your recipe sounds delicious!
Thank you for your Recipe. Going to try it.
Hi Celeste,
You’re very welcome. We hope you love it as much as we do.
How many is in your dozen? All I wanted was to bake some cookies for my smallish congregation. Well… its day 2 and I’m still baking… my church, landlords, cousins, neighbors, colleagues and friends all thank you for this delicious recipe! 🤣 I got 250 standard sized cookies out… it’s my new favorite recipe and I can’t wait to play around with variations. 💜
Hi Caslyn! Oh my goodness, that’s a large number of cookies. Depending on the size and thickness you prefer your cookies to be, you will get less or more. HOWEVER, I’ve amended my recipe quantity to state 150 large cookies so future bakers know what to expect 🙂 Glad you enjoyed it though.
Hi there, I just want to confirm the grams on the flour and sugar.
Flour: 1 cup = 120 grams and Sugar: 1 cup = 200 grams, so it would be
Flour – 1200 grams and Sugar – 800 grams?
Hi Andrea, spot on!
Great recipe, value for money. I added cinnamon (mom’s recipe uses nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon but I only had cinnamon and didn’t have all the ingredients for her recipe so I discovered this one.) and gave each cookie an egg wash with sprinkle of sugar before baking. My 3.5 year old can’t stop eating these! (And neither can the parents…)
It’s a great recipe, isn’t it! We have the same problem at home, we can’t stop once we start. Enjoy.
I am so happy i found this recipe!! DANKIE!! We are from Cape Town, living in Berlin. So all things South African are warmly received. Do you have a special recipe for icing them? My daughter wants the icing part to be an activity at her princess birthday party. (4) 😉
Hi Farryn, groot plesier! So happy you’re happy with it. Here is an easy recipe:
Ingredients
1 cup (125g) powdered sugar (icing sugar)
1–2 tablespoons milk (or water for dairy-free)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
Food coloring (optional)
Instructions
Mix the Sugar and Liquid:
In a small bowl, whisk the powdered sugar with 1 tablespoon of milk. Add more milk, a few drops at a time, until the icing reaches a smooth, spreadable consistency.
Flavor and Color (Optional):
Stir in the vanilla extract for flavor. If you’d like colored icing, mix in a few drops of food coloring until the desired shade is achieved.
Apply to Biscuits:
Spread the icing over cooled biscuits using a spoon, knife, or piping bag.
Set and Harden:
Let the iced biscuits sit at room temperature for 20–30 minutes until the icing sets.
Hello there! I have a question, are these biscuits rather hard and crispy, or soft and chewy? I’ve been looking for a hard biscuits recipe fore a while, no luck yet…
Hello 😊 These are definitely on the hard and crispy side rather than soft and chewy—that classic old-fashioned “soetkoekie” texture.
They should have a nice crunch once cooled, so it sounds like this might be just what you’re looking for! Let me know if you give them a try 💛
I have just mixed the full recipe.
For some reason my dough came out very “wet” and sticky, I had to add 3 additional cups of flour🤔🫣 it’s resting in the fridge now. Hoping for the best outcome 😊
Oh no, that can happen sometimes 😊 The dough should be more firm than sticky, so adding extra flour was the right call.
This can be due to very soft butter, larger eggs, or a bit too much water—so next time just add the water slowly if needed.
The fridge rest should help firm it up nicely. Hope they turn out beautifully—let me know how they go!