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Outydse Soetkoekies (Traditional South African Biscuits)

June 5, 2020 Queenstown, NZ

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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! 

Outydse Soetkoekies

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

Soetkoekie ingredients

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.

Sift dry ingredients soetkoekie recipe
butter
cream butter and sugar

Cover the dough with cling film and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.

Outydse soetkoekie dough to chill

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.

Rolled out dough

Press out with cookie cutter of your choice. I still love the traditional round shape most.

Outydse Soetkoekies cutout

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.

Soetkoekies

Until next time!

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Outydse Soetkoekies
Print Recipe
5 from 3 votes

Outydse Soetkoekies

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 cookie that turns out perfect every single time! 
Prep Time20 mins
Cook Time40 mins
Resting Time15 mins
Total Time1 hr 15 mins
Course: Snack
Cuisine: South African
Keyword: Baking, biscuits, cookies, Snack
Servings: 4 Dozen

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

TIPS:  Easily half the ingredients to make fewer biscuits.
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in Baking, Snacks # baking biscuits cookies snacks

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Comments

  1. valerie boolsen says

    June 6, 2020 at 2:11 pm

    Looks delicious

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      June 28, 2020 at 11:36 pm

      Hi Valerie,
      Thanks for popping by. Let us know if you have tried it! We would love to hear from you. MM*

      Reply
  2. Sarah (The Plantation in PE) says

    June 28, 2020 at 5:05 pm

    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!

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      June 28, 2020 at 11:39 pm

      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*

      Reply
  3. Quan says

    July 5, 2020 at 12:40 am

    5 stars
    The best biscuits on earth. They taste wonderful.

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      July 14, 2020 at 9:57 pm

      Hey Quan!
      We’re so glad you like these biscuits 🙂 Love Mom

      Reply
  4. Stacey says

    September 18, 2020 at 1:22 am

    5 stars
    These have become a family favorite. My sisters in the UK have been giving them ago too 🙂 Really easy recipe and delicious.

    Reply
  5. Melene le Roux says

    January 30, 2021 at 1:12 pm

    Just love this biscuits!!!!! WoW WoW Fantastic!!!!!

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      September 6, 2021 at 7:07 pm

      We adore them too! Thanks for popping in to visit our website.

      Reply
  6. Kathleen says

    September 6, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    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

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      September 6, 2021 at 7:08 pm

      Oh yummy! What a great addition of spices. Taking these biscuits next level

      Reply
  7. Kathleen says

    September 7, 2021 at 5:22 am

    Delicious delicious

    Reply
  8. Izelda says

    April 30, 2022 at 1:45 pm

    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!

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      May 1, 2022 at 7:54 am

      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

      Reply
  9. Wayne van Niekerk says

    November 27, 2022 at 5:16 pm

    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.

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      December 29, 2022 at 5:22 pm

      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!

      Reply
  10. Celeste says

    December 29, 2022 at 2:00 pm

    5 stars
    Thank you for your Recipe. Going to try it.

    Reply
    • meganmoller2010 says

      December 29, 2022 at 5:20 pm

      Hi Celeste,
      You’re very welcome. We hope you love it as much as we do.

      Reply

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