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South African condensed milk biscuits (Kondensmelk koekies)
Condensed milk biscuits are well-known in South-Africa. They are similar to New Zealand condensed milk biscuits, but contain egg.
The dough is soft and very pliable, which means you can shape your biscuits with a cookie press, or even a meat grinder with a cookie attachment, if you are so lucky to own one.
This recipe is for a small batch, but feel free make more by multiplying the recipe.
Yield about 6 dozen
Ingredients
- 225 gram butter
- 2/3 cup (140 gram) sugar
- 1 egg
- 100 gram condensed milk (1/4 of a 397 gram tin)
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) golden syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) caramel or vanilla essence
- 3 cups (375 gram) flour
- 3/4 teaspoon (4 ml) baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) cream of tartar
- pinch of salt
Optional: Good quality, round chocolate chip morsels (we used Belgium Dark chocolate chips)
Method
- Cream butter and sugar together until soft and light.
- Beat in the egg and mix well.
- Add the condensed milk, golden syrup and caramel or vanilla essence and mix thoroughly.
- Sift the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt over the creamed mixture and combine well into dough. Knead lightly if necessary.
- Pre-heat your oven to 170°C
- Form biscuits with a cookie press or a meat grinder with a cookie attachment. If you’re using a meat grinder, make each biscuits about 5 cm long. If you don't have either, roll dough into little nut-sized balls and flatten them with a fork.
- Optional: Decorate the biscuits with little round chocolate chip pieces, as shown in the photo.
- Bake at a moderate heat for about 10 to 15 minutes. The biscuits will be straw coloured when they are done.
- Remove from oven.
- Use an egg lifter to loosen each biscuit from the baking trays while they are still warm, but leave them on the trays to cool down.
- Store them in an airtight container.
Notes:
About the photo: We used an apron that was hand-sewn by Marietjie's great-grandmother as a backdrop for the photo.
Comments
Those are so cute! That shape is just adorable. I love condensed milk in anything too :)
Dear TIme for a Little Something, thank you for your kind words! I am glad I am not the only one that thought they looked cute. Condensed milk is a big treat in our house - it is fun using just a part of the tin as an ingredient in something - and then we three have fun in eating it straight from the tin ;-)
My family used to love these....I cant remember if my moms recipe had an egg in or not....I used to have a cookie press like you have but it belonged to my Gran initially and eventually gave up and broke! Sad day! I must really try these again for my grandsons xx
Lovely to hear from you Colleen! The cookie press I use is an old orange cookie gun which belonged to my mother. Nowadays you do get fancier ones, but I am happy with the one I have. It works better for a soft dough. I also have a very old meat grinder which is operated by hand with a cookie attachment on for soft dough as well. I am unable to use it on my own and need to bribe a family member to turn the handle for me. I have difficulty in convincing someone to do it for me, but there is nothing better than a koffiekoekie sandwich from the grinder. (Look at "koffiekoekies" on the the page)